Move "help" to a different Argument Group in python argparse

argparse, python

Solution

You can use `add_help=False` to disable the built-in help command and add your own instead, using `action="help"` (thanks @mgilson!)

To get rid of the spaces, don't set `metavar` to an empty string. Your options should be specified using `action="store_true"` to make them true (argument-less) options:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog="LS.py",
                                 usage="%(prog)s [options] [paths...]\nThe paths are optional; if not given . is used.",
                                 add_help=False)

group = parser.add_argument_group("Options")

group.add_argument("-h", "--help", action="help", help="show this help message and exit")
group.add_argument("-path", default=".", help=argparse.SUPPRESS)
group.add_argument("-m", "--modified", action="store_true",
                    help="show last modified date/time")
group.add_argument("-o", "--order", nargs=1, default="name",
                    help="sort order (n[ame], m[odified], s[ize])\n[default: name]")
group.add_argument("-r", "--recursive", action="store_true",
                    help="recurse into subdirectories")
group.add_argument("-s", "--sizes", action="store_true",
                   help="show sizes")

args = parser.parse_args()

Output:

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -m, --modified        show last modified date/time
  -o ORDER, --order ORDER
                        sort order (n[ame], m[odified], s[ize]) [default:
                        name]
  -r, --recursive       recurse into subdirectories
  -s, --sizes           show sizes

Problem

Currently I'm creating a directory reader program using Python. I'm using 'argparse' to parse the arguments from command line. I have the following code: ``` parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog = "LS.py", usage = "%(prog)s [options] [path1 [path2 [...pathN]]]\nThe paths are optional; if not given . is used.") group = parser.add_argument_group("Options") group.add_argument("-path", default = ".", help = argparse.SUPPRESS, metavar = "") group.add_argument("-m", "--modified", default = False, help = "show last modified date/time [default: off]", metavar = "") group.add_argument("-o ORDER", "--order=ORDER", nargs = 2, default = "name", help = "order by ('name', 'n', 'modified', 'm', 'size', 's')\n[default: name]", metavar = "") group.add_argument("-r", "--recursive", default = False, help = "recurse into subdirectories [default: off]", metavar = "") group.add_argument("-s", "--sizes", default = False, help = "show sizes [default: off]", metavar = "") args = parser.parse_args() return args ``` When called in the following manner "LS.py -h" it produces the following output: ``` usage: LS.py [options] [path1 [path2 [...pathN]]] The paths are optional; if not given . is used. optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit Options: -m , --modified show last modified date/time [default: off] -o ORDER , --order=ORDER order by ('name', 'n', 'modified', 'm', 'size', 's') [default: name] -r , --recursive recurse into subdirectories [default: off] -s , --sizes show sizes [default: off] ``` My question: Is there a way to move the default help argument into a group such as Options? Also, I can't seem to find a way to remove the space before the commas in the Options arguments. The ideal output is: ``` Usage: ls.py [options] [path1 [path2 [...pathN]]] The paths are optional; if not given . is used. Options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -m, --modified show last modified date/time [default: off] -o ORDER, --order=ORDER order by ('name', 'n', 'modified', 'm', 'size', 's') [default: name] -r, --recursive recurse into subdirectories [default: off] -s, --sizes show sizes [default: off] ```

Original source