CLI tools - should help display by default?

[Glenn Block]

I am sure there's no one answer to this, but interested in the philosophy of folks here. I am working on a CLI tool that has required params. I am using commander for handling the commands/options etc which works great. The question I had is with regard to usage info. This tool always requires you to choose something, so my question is should I display usage automatically if no commands are provided, OR should I say "use --help for a list of commands". 

Thanks

Glenn

[Dean Landolt]

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Glenn Block <glenn...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am sure there's no one answer to this, but interested in the philosophy of folks here. I am working on a CLI tool that has required params. I am using commander for handling the commands/options etc which works great. The question I had is with regard to usage info. This tool always requires you to choose something, so my question is should I display usage automatically if no commands are provided, OR should I say "use --help for a list of commands". 

What's "use --help for al ist of commands" if not usage info? Why not go a step further, if possible, and preface this kind of message with the obvious common cases, if there are any. It can't hurt.

[Glenn Block]

I guess the real question I am asking is being that the command requires at least some params, does it make sense to even have --help? Or should it just print out the help for you and save you the command?

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[Glenn Block]

npm prints out the list of commands if you just type "npm"

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Dean Landolt <de...@deanlandolt.com> wrote:

--

[tjholowaychuk]

if there's nothing useful you can do with no args then definitely
treat it as --help IMHO, though often for example I would use it for
parsing from stdin, default path to CWD, etc, but it really depends on
the tool i guess

On Dec 31 2011, 1:56 pm, Glenn Block <glenn.bl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> npm prints out the list of commands if you just type "npm"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Dean Landolt <d...@deanlandolt.com> wrote:

[Glenn Block]

Cool. In this case I think like npm there is not really a default
action.

Sent from my Windows Phone
From: tjholowaychuk
Sent: 1/1/2012 12:53 AM
To: nodejs
Subject: [nodejs] Re: CLI tools - should help display by default?

[Pavan Kumar Sunkara]

Slightly off-topic, but a small spec to guide cli tools arguments

https://gist.github.com/1485856

PS: Tweet and blog about it if you think it's good.

Thanks
Pavan Kumar Sunkara

--
- Pavan Kumar Sunkara

[Alan Gutierrez]

On 1/1/12 7:44 AM, Pavan Kumar Sunkara wrote:
> Slightly off-topic, but a small spec to guide cli tools arguments
>
> https://gist.github.com/1485856
>
> PS: Tweet and blog about it if you think it's good.

Did you read through any past discussions on command line argument
conventions? Is there a bibliography?

http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Argument-Syntax.html

Seems like a good thing to do, to create a Tweetable gist of conventions
for people to pass around.

--
Alan Gutierrez

[Pavan Kumar Sunkara]

> Did you read through any past discussions on command line argument
> conventions? Is there a bibliography?
>
> http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Argument-Syntax.html
>
> Seems like a good thing to do, to create a Tweetable gist of conventions for
> people to pass around.
>
> --
> Alan Gutierrez

Yes, I read almost all past conventions on command line arguments
including the link you gave me before writing the gist.

I just expanded the existing conventions with my spec.

Thanks