On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 1:23 PM, Adam Spiers <aspi...@suse.com> wrote:
> Dean Troyer (dtro...@gmail.com) wrote: > > On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:11 PM, Adam Spiers <aspi...@suse.com> wrote: > > > As of my recent patch, --help is contextual in nova: > > > > I hadn't seen that yet... > > > > > and I have started work on some of the other commands too, so it would > > > be helpful if we could reach a consensus on this soon ... although > > > please let me know if I am wasting my time working on other commands > > > due to any imminent rewrites using python-openstack! > > > > The continued existence of the project-specific commands is really up > > to the projects themselves. I think it would be great to converge > > them on things like this, but trying to get them all to work the same > > is what led us to openstackclient due to backward compatibility and > > all. My guess would be that the existing client binaries would live > > through the 'G' release even if we decided to deprecate them now. > > OK, thanks for the info. So what's the goal for this project - to > enter the incubation program? to become part of openstack-common? > Should it be added to http://wiki.openstack.org/Projects ? > > > > I agree with Dolph - there is a precedent from other well-known > > > programs (git, hg, svn are the first ones I can think of) for --help > > > to behave differently depending on whether or not it was preceded by a > > > subcommand. So my vote is that we should definitely aim to adhere to > > > this pattern. > > > > How about detailing it in the HIG and once we get a command or two > > implemented with argument parsing we give it a shot? > > I took a stab at this, but it's beginning to confirm the doubts which > I wrote about in https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg10956.html > regarding the decision to have the verb preceding the noun: > > openstack create --help > openstack help create > > would require grouping of help for all the creation actions together > which doesn't make much sense to me. These both seem to make more > sense: > > openstack endpoint --help > openstack help endpoint > but would lead to overly long output unless they invoked man(1) on a > corresponding manual page all about endpoint management, similar to > how say, 'git remote --help' invokes the git-remote(1) man page which > covers management of git remotes. > > The other option is to support a more fine-grained approach to help: > > openstack create endpoint --help > openstack help create endpoint > > and then make the help action require both, e.g. > > $ openstack help create > Usage: openstack help create OBJECT-TYPE > > Which type of object do you want help creating? > > Available identity types: > catalog ec2-credentials endpoint role > service tenant user user-password > user-role > > Available compute types: > absolute-limits actions aggregate bash-completion > cloudpipe console-log credentials diagnostics > dns dns-domain endpoints fixed-ip > flavor floating-ip floating-ip-pool host > image keypair meta(data) quota > quota-class rate-limits resource root-password > secgroup secgroup-group secgroup-rule usage > vnc-console volume volume-snapshot volume-type > x509-cert x509-root-cert > > [...] > > and ditto for 'openstack create --help'. (Of course, this is just a > mockup and incorrectly lists some types which you would never create.) > > Here are the classes of use cases I can think of: > > 1. User has never/rarely used the (openstack) command before and > needs to know overall structure of possible arguments and/or see > a brief summary of common "get me started" arguments. > > Suggested implementation: > openstack --help > > 2. User has used the (openstack) command before but needs to check > global options. > > Suggested implementation: > openstack --help > FTR, both 1 and 2 are implemented today. > > 3. User wants to e.g. create something but isn't sure of the exact > name of the type of the object to be created. > > Suggested implementation: > openstack help create > openstack create --help > It should be relatively straightforward to have the help command scan all available commands using the input as a substring if it doesn't match anything exactly. I think we probably just want to produce the list of those commands, though, and not go into any more detail than a one-line description. Doing much more is going to produce far too much output. > > 4. User wants to perform one or more actions on a particular type of > object e.g. volume, but isn't sure which actions are available. > > Suggested implementation: > ???? > See comment above. > > 5. User knows both the action and object type but needs to check > details of options / extra positional arguments. > > Suggested implementation: > openstack create endpoint --help > openstack help create endpoint > FTR, the second option is how it works today. > > Thoughts? > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openstack > Post to : openstack@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openstack > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp >
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