[Feature Request] Hide default value and flag type

[borela]

Currently, my project shows:

Commands:
  index.js build     Build the project.
  index.js scaffold  Generate a project from the available templates.
  index.js lint      Check or fix code style.
  index.js test      Run test suites.

Options:
  --help            Show usage instructions.                           [boolean]
  --version         Show toolbox version.                              [boolean]
  --comment-flow    Convert Flow annotations to comments.              [boolean]
  --env             Used to determine the polyfills and fine tune the linter.
        [array] [choices: "browser", "node-js"] [default: ["browser","node-js"]]
  --flow            Enable Flow annotations.                           [boolean]
  --jsx             Enable JSX.                                        [boolean]
  --react           Enable React transformations.                      [boolean]
  --remove-flow     Remove Flow annotations.                           [boolean]
  --production      Remove debug plugins.                              [boolean]
  --target-browser  Browsers targeted by the project.
      [array] [default: ["chrome >= 49",">= 0.5%","last 2 versions","not dead"]]
  --target-node-js  Minimum NodeJS version targeted by the project.
                                                           [string] [default: 6]
  --type-script     Enable TypeScript.                                 [boolean]

But the default values and types pollutes it, is it possible already to hide them? I would like something like this:

Commands:
  index.js build     Build the project.
  index.js scaffold  Generate a project from the available templates.
  index.js lint      Check or fix code style.
  index.js test      Run test suites.

Options:
  --help            Show usage instructions.                           
  --version         Show toolbox version.                              
  --comment-flow    Convert Flow annotations to comments.              
  --env             Used to determine the polyfills and fine tune the linter.
  --flow            Enable Flow annotations.                           
  --jsx             Enable JSX.                                      
  --react           Enable React transformations.                    
  --remove-flow     Remove Flow annotations.                         
  --production      Remove debug plugins.                            
  --target-browser  Browsers targeted by the project.
  --target-node-js  Minimum NodeJS version targeted by the project.
  --type-script     Enable TypeScript.                                 

[Phothiabea]

Afaik, there is no option to change the formatting of the of the help print out yet, besides usage() and epilogue() which will add a header/footer to it

[borela]

@bcoe Would you a pull request of a function like hideExtras() to hide the types and default values?

[borela]

Another suggestion would be hideTypes() and hideDefaultValues().

[orgrimarr]

I have the same issue, when i add a description + a type, yargs pollutes the output. (--help)
I found in the documentation a command to fit the text to the console size:
. wrap(yargs.terminalWidth())
This may help you

[bcoe]

@borela there's now a way to configure advanced parsing options with parserConfiguration; I would be open to adding some options related to controlling view output, e.g., showDefaultInHelp, which defaults to true.

Do you want to help add this feature?

[borela]

That would great, a flag to hide the flag type would be interesting too, for example showTypeInHelp or showFlagTypeInHelp.

[sorenlouv]

showDefaultInHelp would be super useful.

[eulores]

Here's a quick fix that solves the issue for me.
I patched the installed module, in file node_modules/yargs/build/index.cjs around line 900. The source code is in file usage.ts.

1. I added a oneliner:

let x; const brackets = (v, suffix='') => ((x=__(v))!=='-') && `[${x}${suffix}]` || null;

2. and then replaced most instances of the construct `[${__('string')}]` with brackets('string').

The patched section in file index.cjs (around line 900) looks like this:

        let x; const brackets = (v, suffix='') => ((x=__(v))!=='-') && `[${x}${suffix}]` || null;
        displayedGroups.forEach(({ groupName, normalizedKeys, switches }) => {
            ui.div(groupName);
            normalizedKeys.forEach((key) => {
                const kswitch = switches[key];
                let desc = descriptions[key] || '';
                let type = null;
                if (~desc.lastIndexOf(deferY18nLookupPrefix))
                    desc = __(desc.substring(deferY18nLookupPrefix.length));
                if (~options.boolean.indexOf(key))
                    type = brackets('boolean');
                if (~options.count.indexOf(key))
                    type = brackets('count');
                if (~options.string.indexOf(key))
                    type = brackets('string');
                if (~options.normalize.indexOf(key))
                    type = brackets('string');
                if (~options.array.indexOf(key))
                    type = brackets('array');
                if (~options.number.indexOf(key))
                    type = brackets('number');
                const deprecatedExtra = (deprecated) => typeof deprecated === 'string'
                    ? `[${__('deprecated: %s', deprecated)}]`
                    : `[${__('deprecated')}]`;
                const extra = [
                    (key in deprecatedOptions) ? brackets('deprecated') && deprecatedExtra(deprecatedOptions[key]) : null,
                    type,
                    (key in demandedOptions) ? brackets('required') : null,
                    options.choices && options.choices[key] ? brackets('choices:', ` ${self.stringifiedValues(options.choices[key])}]`) : null,
                    brackets('default:') && defaultString(options.default[key], options.defaultDescription[key])
                ].filter(Boolean).join(' ');
                ui.span({ text: getText(kswitch), padding: [0, 2, 0, 2 + getIndentation(kswitch)], width: maxWidth(switches, theWrap) + 4 }, desc);
                if (extra)
                    ui.div({ text: extra, padding: [0, 0, 0, 2], align: 'right' });
                else
                    ui.div();
            });
            ui.div();
        });

The application that calls yargs will need to use option updateStrings. Those bracketed strings that shall be hidden should be set to '-' as seen in this code fragment:

  yargs.updateStrings({
    'boolean': '-',
    'string': '-',
    'count': '-',
    'array': '-',
    'number': '-',
    'choices:': '-',
    'default:': '-',
  })

[ljharb]

My use case is a "github token" argument, which defaults from process.env - but i do not want to display a secret value in the help output.

[vladikopl01]

Any updates on this feature?

[Nantris]

Not a very important complaint in our case, but it's a bit annoying that [boolean] shows next to --version and --help.

Even though they are booleans, no reasonable person is passing --version=false, so it just clutters the output.

[06000208]

Think this has been implemented by #2156, per #2153, and will be in the next release according to the info there.

[ljharb]

@06000208 per #2156 (comment), that does not cover this issue, since it doesn't allow the type to be hidden on arbitrary options, only on everything all at once.

[bcoe]

@ljharb please feel free to open an additional feature request for hiding the default/type suffixes for individual commands.

Closing this as it addresses the feature request in this ticket (which was to turn the feature on or off globally).

[ljharb]

Fair enough, opened #2299.