.help(false) does not disable --help when used in a default command

[daguej]

.help(false) does not appear to be working correctly in v15.0.2 when used in a default command. It does hide the --help option from the help text, but yargs still prints the help text if you run myapp --help or myapp help.

This is contrary to the docs, which say

If the boolean argument false is provided, it will disable --help.

I got the desired behavior (ie, yargs did nothing with --help) in v8.0.2 by not calling .help(…) at all. I noticed this issue when trying to upgrade.

[mleguen]

Reproduced with master branch.

[mleguen]

Oups! Sorry, inverted help(false) and parse() in my test code.

I cannot reproduce this issue with the following test code, using either 15.0.2, 15.1.0 or master branch:

index.js

const yargs = require('yargs')

console.log(
  yargs
    .help(false)
    .parse()
)

--help does not show help, as expected (it is only seen as a regular option):

$ node index.js --help
{ _: [], help: true, '$0': 'index.js' }

@daguej Could you please provide a sample code reproducing this issue?

[daguej]

@mleguen looks like my situation was a bit complex. You have to have a default command with help disabled and another command with help enabled.

var yargs = require('yargs');

var argv = yargs
.command('foo', 'bar', function(yargs) {
	yargs.option('baz', {
		describe: 'qux'
	})
})
.command('*', 'foo', function(yargs) {
	yargs
	.option('help', {
		boolean: true
	})
	.help(false)
})
.argv;

console.log(argv);

Tested against master/v15.1.0 (7fdb3e7).

$ test --help
test

foo

Commands:
  test foo  bar
  test      foo                                                        [default]

Options:
  --version  Show version number                                       [boolean]

[mleguen]

@daguej .help() is not designed to work for subcommands, but at the global level.

If I understand well what you are intending to do:

• test foo --helpshould mean "display help for foo"?
• and test --help should mean something else than "display help for the default command"?

I doubt this is a use case we would cover. However, we should state in the doc that .help() is not to be called on commands.

[daguej]

@mleguen Yes, you understand my intention. I want to manually handle the display of help content for my default command, but let yargs handle help for all other commands.

Are you sure that help() is not meant to be used with commands?

A quick reading of the code shows that yargs.help() is mostly a shortcut for yargs.boolean('help').describe('help', …), and then also sets an internal var helpOpt (and I'd bet this bug is related to the handling of that var). So there's no reason that help() should not work with commands.

I can get my desired behavior by inverting how I call help() (disabling globally and then enabling selectively), and everything works as expected; I can configure help per-command:

var yargs = require('yargs');

var argv = yargs
.command('foo', '2', function(yargs) {
	yargs.option('baz', {
		describe: 'opt'
	})
	.help()
})
.command('bar', '3', function(yargs) {
	yargs.option('qux', {
		describe: 'opt'
	})
	.help('info')
})
.command('*', '1', function(yargs) {
	yargs
	.option('help', {
		boolean: true
	})
})
.help(false)
.argv;

console.log(argv);

$ test --help
{ _: [], help: true, '$0': 'test' }

$ test foo --help
test foo

2

Options:
  --version  Show version number                                       [boolean]
  --baz      opt
  --help     Show help                                                 [boolean]

$ test bar --help
{ _: [ 'bar' ], help: true, '$0': 'test' }

$ test bar --info
test bar

3

Options:
  --version  Show version number                                       [boolean]
  --qux      opt
  --info     Show help                                                 [boolean]

And, having help enabled globally and disabling it selectively in normal commands also works:

var yargs = require('yargs');

var argv = yargs
.command('foo', '2', function(yargs) {
	yargs.option('baz', {
		describe: 'opt'
	})
	.help(false)
})
.argv;

console.log(argv);

$ test --help
test [command]

Commands:
  test foo  2

Options:
  --help     Show help                                                 [boolean]
  --version  Show version number                                       [boolean]

$ test foo --help
{ _: [ 'foo' ], help: true, '$0': 'test' }

So it's only when a default command is involved that the behavior of help() is broken.

This wouldn't be the first time there's a bug with default command help: #810

[mleguen]

@daguej Thanks for your analysis.

In fact this occurs only when there is other commands, or when the default command has no aliases, and I think it is rather a wanted behavior than a bug (set skipDefaultCommand to false in yargs.js, run npm test and look at the uses cases described by broken tests).

As I understand it, yargs distinguishes global help and default command help:

• global help (node index.js --help) lists the default command with its aliases and the other commands
• default command help (node index.js alias --help with alias being a default command alias) displays only the default command options and subcommands

The only exception is when there are neither other commands, nor aliases to the default command. In that case, yargs replaces the global help (which would have no interest) by the default command help.

So in your use case, as you stated, you indeed have first to disable the global help, then to reenable it in the commands where you do not want to handle help yourself.

[1dotd4]

closing w/o fixing

true opensource!

[1dotd4]

yargs
  .command('doStuff', '', () => {}, doStuff)
  .command('help', '', () => {}, myHelp)
  .help(false)
  .parse()

yargs doesn't use myHelp and it's related to help(false).