Class HelpFormatter

source code

Known Subclasses:

• IndentedHelpFormatter
• , TitledHelpFormatter

Abstract base class for formatting option help. OptionParser instances should use one of the HelpFormatter subclasses for formatting help; by default IndentedHelpFormatter is used.

Instance attributes:

parser : OptionParser

the controlling OptionParser instance

indent_increment : int

the number of columns to indent per nesting level

max_help_position : int

the maximum starting column for option help text

help_position : int

the calculated starting column for option help text; initially the same as the maximum

width : int

total number of columns for output (pass None to constructor for this value to be taken from the $COLUMNS environment variable)

level : int

current indentation level

current_indent : int

current indentation level (in columns)

help_width : int

number of columns available for option help text (calculated)

default_tag : str

text to replace with each option's default value, "%default" by default. Set to false value to disable default value expansion.

option_strings : { Option : str }

maps Option instances to the snippet of help text explaining the syntax of that option, e.g. "-h, --help" or "-fFILE, --file=FILE"

_short_opt_fmt : str

format string controlling how short options with values are printed in help text. Must be either "%s%s" ("-fFILE") or "%s %s" ("-f FILE"), because those are the two syntaxes that Optik supports.

_long_opt_fmt : str

similar but for long options; must be either "%s %s" ("--file FILE") or "%s=%s" ("--file=FILE").