How can I use rich formatting with argparse ?

[aahnik]

See the code below:

    main_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        description='CLI Tool to do something',
        epilog='''To learn how to use an action use that.
        \n\nFor tutorials and documentation visit https://git.io/JL1iI ''', formatter_class=RawTextHelpFormatter)

    main_parser.add_argument('-l', '--loud',
                             help='increase output verbosity',
                             action='store_true')

I am creating an argument parser with argparse. I want rich text for help, description and epilogs.

how can i use rich along with argparse ?

[netllama]

I would also be interested in using rich to render argparse output, even if it was only the help text.

[xgrg]

Did you try to override ArgumentParser's _print_message function? As in this example:

class AParser(argparse.ArgumentParser):
    def _print_message(self, message, file=None):
        if message:
            if file is None:
                from rich import print
                print(message)
            else:
                file.write(message)

main_parser = AParser(description='CLI Tool to do something', ...)

[aahnik]

I will try this out.

By the way, I stopped using argparse and currently using typer for my current and upcoming projects.

[Alyetama]

Doesn't work (rich=10.6.0).

  File "/Users/user/miniforge3/lib/python3.9/argparse.py", line 2548, in print_help
    self._print_message(self.format_help(), file)
  File "/Users/user/miniforge3/lib/python3.9/argparse.py", line 2525, in format_help
    formatter.add_arguments(action_group._group_actions)
  File "/Users/user/miniforge3/lib/python3.9/argparse.py", line 277, in add_arguments
    self.add_argument(action)
  File "/Users/user/miniforge3/lib/python3.9/argparse.py", line 267, in add_argument
    invocation_length = max(map(len, invocations))
TypeError: object of type 'NoneType' has no len()

[epi052]

class MuhParser(argparse.ArgumentParser):
    def _print_message(self, message: str, file: Optional[IO[str]] = None) -> None:
        rich.print(message, file=file)

This works for me @aahnik

[yashrathi-git]

Yes, I would love if rich could work with click to give colored help messages like poetry