Re: Long help lines and wrapping

On 10 November 2002, Bob van der Poel said:
> Opps, no snidness intended. I quite like optik and think it is a
> valuable addition to the python suite. Sorry if my feeble attempt
> at lightness/humour was misinterpreted.

Well, *I* wasn't offended, but I'm also prone to software
anthropomorphy.

> Replace the wrap_text() function called in format_option() with a
> routine specific to optik. This would follow the rules in the existing
> wrap_text() with the following addition: if a \n is found in the text to
> be wrapped, the text will be wrapped at this point. In addition, any
> white space following the \n will be preserved.
> 
> If this was to work I could then set up my option like:
> 
>         parser.add_option("-p", "--pattern", type="string",
>            action="store", dest="pattern", 
>            help="Set Pattern. Available patterns are:\n" +
>                 "   xx use the xx pattern\n" +
>                 "   yy use the yy pattern") 

This sounds eminently sensible to me.  Easy to implement too.  I think
David's idea is massive flaming overkill.

> Just thinking a bit about this myself, I see a pro and a con.
> 
> Con: If existing code with '\n's already in the help strings used the
> new routine, it might break. However, I don't see this being a big
> issue? I may be wrong...

That doesn't bother me.

> Pro: Setting up help strings in this manner, esp. with """ strings,
> seems to be quite intutitive.

Yep.  

> Question: If I were to impliment this by adding a new wrap_text() is
> there a way this could be done without hacking into the optik code?

No.  Furthermore, I need to change Optik to use the new textwrap module
that will be in the Python 2.3 standard library.  It's not *that*
different from the wrap_text() function from distutils (I wrote 'em
both), but any change you make *might* be made obsolete when I do that.

IOW: patches welcome, but any patch you supply is more likely to kick me
into working on Optik again than to be checked in.  That might not be a
bad thing.  ;-)

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward <[email protected]>                         http://www.gerg.ca/
MTV -- get off the air!
    -- Dead Kennedys


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