Cli: Misleading user error message when using flags

[MichaelMure]

Hi,

As far as I understand, cli expect the root/global flags to be provided between the binary name and the subcommand name, and the command flags to be provided at the end:

binary-name [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

As this pattern is not that common, it's easy for a new user to try to provide the root flags at the end of the command. In this case, he will be greeted with a rather unhelpful error message:

Incorrect Usage: flag provided but not defined: -host

Note that the message is the same when trying a flag that doesn't exist.

Would it be possible to get a more explanatory message in these cases ? I tried to make a workaround using OnUsageError but it's impractical for several reasons:

• you have to match and parse the error message
• it's not a simple error message rewrite, it's a different code path inside cli and you have to emulate some behavior like printing the help text manually
• you have to plug this workaround in every single command

[thedoc31]

Agreed. This format is not globally recognized and goes against how most CLIs work, where global options are not position-sensitive. This is extremely confusing, especially for experienced CLI end users.

[lynncyrin]

I understand that's going on here 👍 I would be happy to help someone with a pull request for this issue!

[lynncyrin]

I definitely agree that what we want is to allow global flags to be specified at any position. I'd love to see a PR for that, or for the issue of the misleading error message, or both!

[AudriusButkevicius]

Thats not true, I think kubectl also has position sensitive global flags, so we're not the only ones.

[stale[bot]]

This issue or PR has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. Please add a comment bumping this if you're still interested in it's resolution! Thanks for your help, please let us know if you need anything else.

[lynncyrin]

Hey @MichaelMure & @thedoc31, this issue may have been fixed by our v2 release? Check it out and let me know what you think.

[stale[bot]]

This issue or PR has been bumped and is no longer marked as stale! Feel free to bump it again in the future, if it's still relevant.

[thedoc31]

@lynncyrin I'll see if the internal project using the framework has plans to upgrade to v2. Thanks for following up!

[stale[bot]]

This issue or PR has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. Please add a comment bumping this if you're still interested in it's resolution! Thanks for your help, please let us know if you need anything else.

[lynncyrin]

This issue is still waiting for someone to investigate if it's still a problem, and stand up a PR if so 🙏

[stale[bot]]

This issue or PR has been bumped and is no longer marked as stale! Feel free to bump it again in the future, if it's still relevant.

[stale[bot]]

This issue or PR has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. Please add a comment bumping this if you're still interested in it's resolution! Thanks for your help, please let us know if you need anything else.

[stale[bot]]

Closing this as it has become stale.