python - Customize argparse help message

Question

I have written the following sample code to demonstrate my issue.

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-v', '--version', action='version',
                    version='%(prog)s 1.0')
parser.parse_args()

This produces the following help message.

$ python foo.py --help
usage: foo.py [-h] [-v]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --version  show program's version number and exit

I want to customize this help output such that it capitalizes all phrases and sentences, and puts period after sentences. In other words, I want the help message to be generated like this.

$ python foo.py --help
Usage: foo.py [-h] [-v]

Optional arguments:
  -h, --help     Show this help message and exit.
  -v, --version  Show program's version number and exit.

Is this something that I can control using the argparse API. If so, how? Could you please provide a small example that shows how this can be done?

Answer 1

First of all: capitalising those phrases flies in the face of convention, and argparse isn't really tooled to help you change these strings easily. You have three different classes of strings here: boilerplate text from the help formatter, section titles, and help text per specific option. All these strings are localisable; you could just provide a 'capitalised' translation for all of these strings via the gettext() module support. That said, you can reach in and replace all these strings if you are determined enough and read the source code a little.

The version action includes a default help text, but you can supply your own by setting the help argument. The same applies to the help action; if you set the add_help argument to False you can add that action manually:

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)

parser.add_argument('-v', '--version', action='version',
                    version='%(prog)s 1.0', help="Show program's version number and exit.")
parser.add_argument('-h', '--help', action='help', default=argparse.SUPPRESS,
                    help='Show this help message and exit.')

Next, the optional arguments message is a group title; each parser has two default groups, one for positional arguments, the other for optional. You can reach these by the attributes _positionals and _optionals, both of which have a title attribute:

parser._positionals.title = 'Positional arguments'
parser._optionals.title = 'Optional arguments'

Be warned, by accessing names starting with an underscore you are venturing into the undocumented private API of the module, and your code may break in future updates.

Finally, to change the usage string, you'll have to subclass the help formatter; pass the subclass in as the formatter_class argument:

class CapitalisedHelpFormatter(argparse.HelpFormatter):
    def add_usage(self, usage, actions, groups, prefix=None):
        if prefix is None:
            prefix = 'Usage: '
        return super(CapitalisedHelpFormatter, self).add_usage(
            usage, actions, groups, prefix)

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(formatter_class=CapitalisedHelpFormatter)

Demo, putting these all together:

>>> import argparse
>>> class CapitalisedHelpFormatter(argparse.HelpFormatter):
...     def add_usage(self, usage, actions, groups, prefix=None):
...         if prefix is None:
...             prefix = 'Usage: '
...         return super(CapitalisedHelpFormatter, self).add_usage(
...             usage, actions, groups, prefix)
...
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False, formatter_class=CapitalisedHelpFormatter)
>>> parser._positionals.title = 'Positional arguments'
>>> parser._optionals.title = 'Optional arguments'
>>> parser.add_argument('-v', '--version', action='version',
...                     version='%(prog)s 1.0', help="Show program's version number and exit.")
_VersionAction(option_strings=['-v', '--version'], dest='version', nargs=0, const=None, default='==SUPPRESS==', type=None, choices=None, help="Show program's version number and exit.", metavar=None)
>>> parser.add_argument('-h', '--help', action='help', default=argparse.SUPPRESS,
...                     help='Show this help message and exit.')
_HelpAction(option_strings=['-h', '--help'], dest='help', nargs=0, const=None, default='==SUPPRESS==', type=None, choices=None, help='Show this help message and exit.', metavar=None)
>>> print(parser.format_help())
Usage: [-v] [-h]

Optional arguments:
  -v, --version  Show program's version number and exit.
  -h, --help     Show this help message and exit.