On and off switches are not working

[dignifiedquire]

If I try

program.command('start')
  .option('--auto-watch', 'Description')
  .option('--no-auto-watch', 'Description')
  .action(function(options) {
    console.log(options.autoWatch);
  });

I get the following output:

$ node program.js start --auto-watch
false
$ node program.js start --no-auto-watch
false
$ node program.js start
true

That should not happen. I need the first one to be true. Also if I try to set a default value of true that won't work either.

[tj]

hmm does having both make sense? The logic I have for boolean flags is that if you have --no- it defaults to true, otherwise it defaults to false, having both seems a little odd but let me know

[dignifiedquire]

The reason for that is that these switches are used to overwrite a configuration file. Depending on what is in the configuration file we need to be able to turn the option on or off.

[tj]

ah I see, yeah that's a little tricky with the defaults I guess hmm

[dignifiedquire]

What about the following

.option('--auto-watch', 'Description')

generates two options, one --auto-watch and one --no-auto-watch with the expected behaviour.
(Maybe some flag here to indicate that one wants the --no option to be generated.)
And if one uses

.option('--no-auto-watch', 'Description')

alone it just behaves as it does right now.

[yanickrochon]

I have a problem with the logic here

.option('-a, --active', 'set as active', Boolean)

sets args.active == false is specified, and undefined if the flag is not specified.

My logic would be that

.option('-a, --active', 'set as active', Boolean)

would set args.active to true if specified, or false (or undefined) otherwise. While

.option('-A, --no-active', 'set as inactive', Boolean)   // or `--not-active` should be valid, too

would set args.active to false if specified, or true otherwise.

I understand that there should be some way to find if the option was specified or not, but I don't think there's any way to tell that such argument is optional or should be always set.

But, again, specifying both would solve the problem.

.option('-a, --active', 'set as active', Boolean)
.option('-A, --no-active', 'set as inactive', Boolean)   // '--not-active'

would check for these rules :

• if -a / --active is specified, set args.active = true;
• if -A / --no-active is specified and !args.active, set args.active = false;
• if option -A / --no-active is declared, setargs.active = true;`
• otherwise, leave undefined

[lydell]

Hehe, even mocha needs this. It has both --colors and --no-colors. Currently mocha uses an ugly hack to achieve the desired results:

// --no-colors

if (!program.colors) mocha.useColors(false);

// --colors

if (~process.argv.indexOf('--colors') ||
    ~process.argv.indexOf('-c')) {
  mocha.useColors(true);
}

(That hack is buggy, too, since -ac won’t work, only -a -c.)

[adius]

Any progress on this one?

[akdor1154]

Still hitting this in 2017..

[usmonster]

I have an open PR that should fix this: #795. Please review and comment!

[shadowspawn]

This issue will be resolved when v3.0.0 is released. Available now as a prerelease. See #1001

[shadowspawn]

Support for combined --foo and --no-foo has shipped in v3 (thanks @usmonster): https://github.com/tj/commander.js/releases/tag/v3.0.0

Closing second oldest open issue. Woop!