Brackets around optional positional args and options are a different color

[dbohdan]

I get a help message like this from the code below.

The square brackets around the optional positional argument are red, while those around the options are not. I am not sure whether this is intentional, but it looks incorrect. I would expect all sets of brackets to be the same color (default, not red in this example).

import argparse
from rich_argparse import RichHelpFormatter


def main() -> None:
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        formatter_class=RichHelpFormatter,
    )

    RichHelpFormatter.styles["argparse.args"] = "red"
    parser.add_argument(
        "positional",
        nargs=argparse.OPTIONAL,
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        "--option",
    )

    args = parser.parse_args()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

[hamdanal]

This is not "intentional" but rather a known issue. I ignored it because it requires some tedious metavar parsing and special casing argparse internals. It gets more complicated with other nargs values like argparse.ZERO_OR_MORE, argparse.ONE_OR_MORE and others.
This is the the second request to fix this issue so maybe its time to reevaluate my position on the topic.

[dbohdan]

Sorry, I missed the first issue when I opened mine: #59.

If this is difficult to fix, and especially if the fix would be fragile, maybe it is not worth it. (At least not until argparse is fixed.) A note in the readme explaining the behavior may suffice. The person who opened the first issue was also confused about whether the difference was intentional, and a note would help with such confusion. I'd add a note even if you intended to fix this later.

[hamdanal]

Sorry, I missed the first issue when I opened mine: #59.

No worries. Yes this is the one.

If this is difficult to fix, and especially if the fix would be fragile, maybe it is not worth it. (At least not until argparse is fixed.) A note in the readme explaining the behavior may suffice. The person who opened the first issue was also confused about whether the difference was intentional, and a note would help with such confusion. I'd add a note even if you intended to fix this later.

I might be able to handle the positional arguments brackets without hitting the edge cases of argparse. However adding a style for the symbols as requested in the linked issue is more complicated.