Commander.js: Is it possible to avoid to prefix the name of the file in the usage of the subcommand ?

Created on 25 Aug 2016 · 4Comments · Source: tj/commander.js

The following subcommand defined within the file litoria-generate.js script setup the usage

var program = require('commander'),
    $               = require('../lib/litoria.js');

program
    .description('generate html from the asciidoc file using html5 as backend')
    .usage('litoria <generate> [options]')
    .option('-b, --backend', 'backend - html5, docbook')
    .parse(process.argv);

as such

    .usage('litoria <generate> [options]')

But when I call the help for that subcommand, the usage is prefixed with the name of the file litoria-generate.

litoria generate --help

  Usage: litoria-generate litoria <generate> [options]

Is there a workaround to only display for the subcommand the command defined within the subcommand usage ?

Source

cmoulliard

👍3

Most helpful comment

Usage is prefixed with the name property of the command, which defaults to the file name. I created a PR to make this settable through a chainable function: https://github.com/tj/commander.js/pull/605

As a (hacky) workaround, you can currently just override _name, but you probably shouldn't rely on that, as it's not part of the intended API:

var program = require('commander');

program._name = 'litoria generate';

program
    .description('generate html from the asciidoc file using html5 as backend')
    .usage('litoria <generate> [options]')
    .option('-b, --backend', 'backend - html5, docbook')
    .parse(process.argv);

CedricReichenbach on 31 Jan 2017

👍4

All 4 comments

yep, it's kind of annoying that usage displays an invalid command.

My solutions was:

.usage('\n\n  $ pm install <generate> [options]')

Then it displays like:

Usage: pm-install 

$ pm install <generate> [options]

Options:

  -h, --help   output usage information
  -f, --force  force installation

armoucar on 23 Jan 2017

As a (hacky) workaround, you can currently just override _name, but you probably shouldn't rely on that, as it's not part of the intended API:

var program = require('commander');

program._name = 'litoria generate';

program
    .description('generate html from the asciidoc file using html5 as backend')
    .usage('litoria <generate> [options]')
    .option('-b, --backend', 'backend - html5, docbook')
    .parse(process.argv);

CedricReichenbach on 31 Jan 2017

👍4

This issue should be closed as fixed with @CedricReichenbach's #605