Re: HelpFormatter help

On 20 October 2003, Johan Svedberg said:
> Hi!
> 
> First, thanks for making optparse, it's great. I almost have things
> working as I want now, although there are some visual aspects I need a
> hand with. Currently my help message look like this:
> 
>     usage: lexin.py [OPTIONS]... WORD
> 
>     options:
>       -h, --help            show this help message and exit
>       -dDICTIONARY, --dictionary=DICTIONARY
>                             make search in DICTIONARY
>       -n, --nocorrection    don't try to correct unknown words
>       -v, --version         output version information and exit
> 
> The things I would like to modify in this output is first of all the
> wrapping that's made on the second line, on a 80 width terminal this
> would fit:

Creating your own custom formatter should work here:

  formatter = IndentedHelpFormatter(max_help_increment=40, width=80)
  parser = OptionParser(..., formatter=formatter)

...play with max_help_increment until you're happy.  Untested, of
course.  ;-)

> Secondly, I would like it to say "Usage:" instad of "usage:" and
> "Options:" instad of "options:", can this be done?

For "Usage:", you'll need to subclass IndentedHelpFormatter and override
format_usage().

It looks like overriding "options:" means you'd have to
subclassformat_option_help(), which would mean a lot of duplicated code.
Bleccch.  Suggestions for refactoring welcome...

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward <[email protected]>                         http://www.gerg.ca/
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.


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