The setUsageHelpLongOptionsMaxWidth method launchs exception when running on terminal with small width

[fabio-franco]

Hi, I saw that the default behavior of the setUsageHelpLongOptionsMaxWidth method is to trigger an exception if the width of the terminal is small. However, I think that makes sense to set the width of options when possible (mid/big screen) but just skip it when it is not possible, instead of failure with this exception:

Exception in thread "main" picocli.CommandLine$InitializationException: Invalid usage long options max width 50. Value must not exceed width(55) - 20
        at picocli.CommandLine$Model$UsageMessageSpec.longOptionsMaxWidth(CommandLine.java:7687)
        at picocli.CommandLine.setUsageHelpLongOptionsMaxWidth(CommandLine.java:3376)
        at com.MyApp.main(MyApp.java:110)

For example, letting the behavior with an exception makes me do a workaround that works because I am using setUsageHelpAutoWidth(true). I think that other people will potentially do a similar thing to avoid the failure (or try-catch it).

CommandLine cmd = new CommandLine(new MyApp())
			.setUnmatchedArgumentsAllowed(false)
			.setSubcommandsCaseInsensitive(true)
			.setOptionsCaseInsensitive(true)
			.setUsageHelpAutoWidth(true);
		
		int width = cmd.getUsageHelpWidth();
		int defaultLongOptionsWidth = 50;
		
		// This is a workaround to avoid setUsageHelpLongOptionsMaxWidth, which needs the defaultLongOptionsWidth 
		// to be bigger than terminal screen plus 20, otherwise it will failure with picocli.CommandLine$InitializationException
		if(width - defaultLongOptionsWidth > 20) {
			cmd.setUsageHelpLongOptionsMaxWidth(defaultLongOptionsWidth);
		}

Is that possible to change the behavior to avoid the exception by just ignoring the value passed to setUsageHelpLongOptionsMaxWidth when the terminal width is too small?

[remkop]

Yes, that makes sense.
Will you be able to provide a pull request for this?

[fabio-franco]

Sure, but probably I will do that on the weekend.

[remkop]

I miss-clicked and accidentally merged before reviewing. 😅
I won’t be able to review it for a few more days; I hope you’re okay with the delayed feedback. (But I’m sure it’ll be solid stuff anyway.) 😄
Thanks again 🙏

[fabio-franco]

Hi @remkop, no worries! 😄