--help for runnable stdlib modules

[anntzer]

BPO	24644
Nosy	@ezio-melotti, @bitdancer, @anntzer

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2015-07-16.18:47:09.952>
created_at = <Date 2015-07-16.16:30:57.512>
labels = ['library']
title = '--help for runnable stdlib modules'
updated_at = <Date 2015-07-17.14:11:39.204>
user = 'https://github.com/anntzer'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2015-07-17.14:11:39.204>
actor = 'ezio.melotti'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2015-07-16.18:47:09.952>
closer = 'r.david.murray'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2015-07-16.16:30:57.512>
creator = 'Antony.Lee'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 24644
keywords = []
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['246808', '246811', '246835', '246852', '246855']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['ezio.melotti', 'r.david.murray', 'Antony.Lee']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'later'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue24644'
versions = ['Python 3.5']

[anntzer]

Support for python -m<runnable-stdlib-module> [-h|--help] is a bit patchy right now:

$ python -mpdb -h
usage: pdb.py [-c command] ... pyfile [arg] ...
<help elided>

$ python -mpdb --help
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/runpy.py", line 170, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", mod_spec)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/pdb.py", line 1685, in <module>
    pdb.main()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/pdb.py", line 1629, in main
    opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:], 'hc:', ['--help', '--command='])
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/getopt.py", line 93, in getopt
    opts, args = do_longs(opts, args[0][2:], longopts, args[1:])
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/getopt.py", line 157, in do_longs
    has_arg, opt = long_has_args(opt, longopts)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/getopt.py", line 174, in long_has_args
    raise GetoptError(_('option --%s not recognized') % opt, opt)
getopt.GetoptError: option --help not recognized
# <-- not a getopt specialist but --help is actually listed in the call to getopt!

$ python -mtrace -h
/usr/lib/python3.4/trace.py: option -h not recognized
Try `/usr/lib/python3.4/trace.py --help' for more information

$ python -mtrace --help
Usage: /usr/lib/python3.4/trace.py [OPTIONS] <file> [ARGS]
<help elided>

[bitdancer]

Please open individual issues to address individual modules that you would like to contribute to improving. Adding/fixing help is often best done by rewriting the argument parsing...contributions have been made to improve several modules already. In most cases we don't have tests for the -m features, and those need to be created first. In some cases we don't really want to continue to support whatever -m code exists (because it exists for no-longer-relevant historical reasons...though that doesn't apply in the two cases you reference). So each module needs to be addressed individually.

To address the specific issue you raise: I believe that when we have rewritten things, we have chosen to follow argparse's lead and support both -h and --help for the display of help information.

[anntzer]

To be honest I don't really plan to contribute any patch on this specific issue right now, the CLI interface of e.g. trace has some other serious issues (see e.g. bpo-24649) that I don't want to work out, and writing tests for the CLI are a pain too (also why I haven't made more progress on bpo-23596).

[bitdancer]

Yes, that's pretty much why things are in the state they are in ;)

Still, opening individual issues for help problems with individual modules is the way to go, as you did (thank you).

[ezio-melotti]

writing tests for the CLI are a pain too

It shouldn't be particularly difficult to do it using script_helper.assert_python_{ok|failure}(), even though you could also check the argument /parsing/ separately without having to launch a subprocess.