Why does my use of click.argument produce "got an unexpected keyword argument 'help'?

Question:

Running the following code results in this error:

TypeError: init() got an unexpected keyword argument ‘help’

Code:

import click

@click.command()
@click.argument('command', required=1, help="start|stop|restart")
@click.option('--debug/--no-debug', default=False, help="Run in foreground")
def main(command, debug):
    print (command)
    print (debug)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Full error output:

$ python3 foo.py start
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "foo.py", line 5, in <module>
    @click.option('--debug/--no-debug', default=False, help="Run in foreground")
  File "/home/cbetti/python/lib/python3/dist-packages/click-4.0-py3.4.egg/click/decorators.py", line 148, in decorator
    _param_memo(f, ArgumentClass(param_decls, **attrs))
  File "/home/cbetti/python/lib/python3/dist-packages/click-4.0-py3.4.egg/click/core.py", line 1618, in __init__
    Parameter.__init__(self, param_decls, required=required, **attrs)
TypeError: __init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'help'

Why does this error occur?

Asked By: Chris Betti

||

Answers:

I run into this again and again because the trace output does not correspond to the parameter causing the error. Notice ArgumentClass in the trace, that’s your hint.

‘help’ is an acceptable parameter to @click.option. The click library prefers, however, that you document your own arguments. The @click.argument help parameter is causing this exception.

This code works: (notice the lack of , help="start|stop|restart" in @click.argument)

import click

@click.command()
@click.argument('command', required=1)
@click.option('--debug/--no-debug', default=False, help="Run in foreground")
def main(command, debug):
    """ COMMAND: start|stop|restart """
    print (command)
    print (debug)

if __name__ == '__main__':
        main()

Output:

$ python3 foo.py start
start
False

Help Output:

Usage: test.py [OPTIONS] COMMAND

  COMMAND: start|stop|restart

Options:
  --debug / --no-debug  Run in foreground
  --help                Show this message and exit.
Answered By: Chris Betti

You are defining commands as arguments. Note that click has a better way to define commands then what you are trying here.

@click.group()
def main():
    pass

@main.command()
def start():
    """documentation for the start command"""
    print("running command `start`")

@main.command()
def stop():
    """documentation for the stop command"""
    print("running command `stop`")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

will result in the following default help text:

Usage: test_cli.py [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

Options:
  --help  Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  start  documentation for the start command
  stop   documentation for the stop command

Having said that, should you really need arguments, you cannot use the help parameter. The click documentation indeed states that you should document your own arguments. However, I have no idea how to do that. Any hints?

EDIT

As mentioned in the comments: this is to align with the Unix standard to document arguments in the main help text.

Answered By: bartaelterman

For me it was because my variable looked like DnsCryptExractDir and I have to chnage it too this dnscryptexractdir because *args could not find it.

Answered By: jmcgrath207

click library does not allow -help parameter inside click.arguments (including the current version 6.7 when this comment has been written).
But, you can use the -help parameter inside click.options.
You can check current click documentation at http://click.pocoo.org/6/documentation/ or previous at http://click.pocoo.org/5/documentation/ this behaviour has not change recently.
Then, it is a WAD. It is not a BUG.

Answered By: derwyddon

For same error I got it because my argument name was url_Hook (camelCase). After I changed it to url_hook it got resolved.

Answered By: user1874480
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