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argparse Prints options per flag name when only once is necessary #101599
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I agree that such a verbosity clutters the help output so it should be deduplicated into a description column. Also, there is no corresponding example in https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html.
I mark it as a feature request, not a bug because such a verbosity explains things in direct, dumb, undesirable but working way.
Reacted by Harrison G Outram and Pawel Jastrzebski@bethard, @bitdancer as prominent contributors into
argparseaccording togit log.Not just multiple choices, it does the same thing for metavar placeholders:
import argparse if __name__ == "__main__": parser = argparse.ArgumentParser() parser.add_argument( '-m', '--metric', choices=["accuracy", "precision", "recall"], help="By which metric trick'd be thee met, Ric?") parser.add_argument( '-d', '--debug', metavar='DEBUG_LEVEL', action='store', type=int, help="Set the debug level (default: 0)") parser.parse_args(["-h"])
$ python3 ./ap.py --help usage: ap.py [-h] [-m {accuracy,precision,recall}] [-d DEBUG_LEVEL] options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -m {accuracy,precision,recall}, --metric {accuracy,precision,recall} By which metric trick'd be thee met, Ric? -d DEBUG_LEVEL, --debug DEBUG_LEVEL Set the debug level (default: 0)
Points for consistency, I guess, but "
-d DEBUG_LEVEL, --debug DEBUG_LEVEL" is pretty unnecessarily redundant as well.Reacted by Pawel JastrzebskiAnd update the docs?
For example, at least:
-v {0,1,2}, --verbosity {0,1,2}https://docs.python.org/3.13/howto/argparse.html#combining-positional-and-optional-arguments
I didn't spot any in the library reference, but it needs checking too:
https://docs.python.org/3.13/library/argparse.html#module-argparse
cc @Jokimax
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Bug report
When running a command line program with the
--help/-hflag withargparse, if another flag has multiple names and choices to pick from, the options are printed multiple times instead of just once. For example, the program below:Will print
usage: argparse_test.py [-h] [-m {accuracy,precision,recall}] options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -m {accuracy,precision,recall}, --metric {accuracy,precision,recall}Notice that the flag choices are printed out twice, once for each flag name. This is redundant and negatively impacts readability. The program should output:
usage: argparse_test.py [-h] [-m {accuracy,precision,recall}] options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -m, --metric {accuracy,precision,recall}Your environment
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