'mpremote help' would be nice

[lurch]

I just pip-installed mpremote and was surprised to see:

$ mpremote --help
mpremote: '--help' is not a command
$ mpremote -h
mpremote: '-h' is not a command
$ mpremote h
mpremote: 'h' is not a command
$ mpremote help
mpremote: 'help' is not a command

Simply printing out the

mpremote connect <device>        -- connect to given device
                                    device may be: list, auto, id:x, port:x
                                    or any valid device name/path
mpremote disconnect              -- disconnect current device
mpremote mount <local-dir>       -- mount local directory on device
mpremote eval <string>           -- evaluate and print the string
mpremote exec <string>           -- execute the string
mpremote run <file>              -- run the given local script
mpremote fs <command> <args...>  -- execute filesystem commands on the device
                                    command may be: cat, ls, cp, rm, mkdir, rmdir
                                    use ":" as a prefix to specify a file on the device
mpremote repl                    -- enter REPL
                                    options:
                                        --capture <file>
                                        --inject-code <string>
                                        --inject-file <file>

text (which I've just copied from https://github.com/micropython/micropython/blob/master/tools/mpremote/README.md ) would probably be sufficient?

Also, looking at the command-list above, perhaps it makes sense for mpremote list to do the same thing as mpremote connect list ?

[dpgeorge]

Yes, help text would be great. The above sounds good to me.

Also, looking at the command-list above, perhaps it makes sense for mpremote list to do the same thing as mpremote connect list ?

I have an alias in my .config/mpremote/config.py file for exactly this:

commands = {
    "list": "connect list",
    ...
}

[lurch]

I have an alias in my .config/mpremote/config.py file for exactly this:

I'd argue that it's probably worth adding that directly to https://github.com/micropython/micropython/blob/master/tools/mpremote/mpremote/main.py#L28 ?

[dpgeorge]

I'd argue that it's probably worth adding that directly to

Yes, good idea. The only concern I'd have is that it's very close to "ls" which lists files on the target board... maybe there's a better alias for "connect list" that's not as similar?

[lurch]

Yeah, I thought of that but I think people with a command-line background will be familiar enough with ls to know the difference? (and luckily list and ls are both "read-only" commands, i.e. no side-effects if used accidentally)
You could add something like mpremote list_connections or mpremote list_devices but that's then not any easier to type than mpremote connect list 😉

[davehylands]

Since connect list shows you devices you can connect to, you could use the command devices to list the devices.

[dpgeorge]

Since connect list shows you devices you can connect to, you could use the command devices to list the devices.

How about just devs for short? So:

$ mpremote devs

which is a shortcut for connect list.

[lurch]

Seems reasonable. As long as people wouldn't expect:

$ mpremote devs
@dpgeorge and others

😉

[dpgeorge]

See #7647 to add a "devs" shortcut.

[dpgeorge]

A help command was added in 74e995d