Missing options information

[bewst]

I think the --help and especially the online docs for the tahoe command are way too lean. There's not even any documentation I can find of the --base-dir option; I had to crawl the code for it!

Note: if the docs were in the wiki, I'd have made that correction myself.

[davidsarah]

See also #742 (about tahoe cp --help).

[davidsarah]

Oops, that change breaks the checking that --basedir is provided for subcommands that have no default basedir. Please ignore while I fix it.

[davidsarah]

No unit tests for the change to basedir behaviour yet.

[davidsarah]

The diff also implements #890.

[davidsarah]

Sample of new options text:

$ tahoe --help
Usage:  tahoe <command> [command options]
Options:
  -q, --quiet             Operate silently.
  -V, --version           Display version numbers and exit.
      --version-and-path  Display version numbers and paths to their locations
                          and exit.
  -C, --basedir=          Specify the base directory of the node to be used.
                          [default for most commands: C:\Users\David/.tahoe]
      --help              Display this help and exit.

[terrell]

there is a forward slash in the sample above ( \David/.tahoe )

[davidsarah]

Diff for source:src/allmydata/scripts/common.py​ to show --basedir option with absolute path for default basedir

[davidsarah]

Replying to terrell:

there is a forward slash in the sample above ( \David/.tahoe )

Fixed. But I want to fix #188 and #706 as well, and add unit tests, so this isn't ready for review yet.

[davidsarah]

I'll modify the patch to also show in the help how the basedir is arrived at, thus fixing #985.

[zooko]

Is this ticket ready for review?

[davidsarah]

Basedir/node directory option improvements. addresses #188, #706, #715, #772, #890

[davidsarah]

attachment:basedir-option-improvements.dpatch​ does the following:

• add -d and --node-directory as a synonym for --basedir, in the commands that didn't already support it. This fixes #188 and #706 (but by making -d the global option).
• tahoe create-key-generator now works consistently with the other commands that take basedir arguments (#772).
• tahoe --help (and the subcommand help) now documents the -d option and gives the absolute path of the default basedir (#715).
• on Windows, the default basedir is ~/.tahoe, like on other platforms, unless overridden by the registry (#890).

This patch depends on the one for #1108.

Known bugs:

• tahoe create-key-generator --help documents a --multiple option that isn't actually valid.
• the description of the --basedir option in the subcommand help should just say "Same as --node-directory .".
• on Windows, backslashes in the default basedir path displayed in the help are doubled unnecessarily; see #1135.

[zooko]

Why does this ticket have the "test-needed" flag and also the "review-needed" flag?

[zooko]

Removing "review-needed" so that people who search for review-needed will find only tickets that are actionable for them. (This ticket is waiting for David-Sarah to explain what they mean by "test-needed".)

[davidsarah]

Don't use this patch; use the one attached to #188.

(What I meant by putting "test-needed" and "review-needed" in the flags is that it needs a design review, even though there are no tests yet. But Zooko and I agreed not to use "review-needed" for that.)

[david-sarah@…]

In [4614/ticket798]:

Basedir/node directory option improvements for ticket798 branch. addresses #188, #706, #715, #772, #890

[davidsarah]

Applied to trunk in f952532f0822fbe7 54a9ba8232e2b8e9 a7c474a09893b9aa.

[davidsarah]

NEWS changes were in 0ae556c00ac79d4f 2b15f35b867cebbd.

[davidsarah]

Replying to davidsarah:

Known bugs:

• tahoe create-key-generator --help documents a --multiple option that isn't actually valid.

It is now valid.

• the description of the --basedir option in the subcommand help should just say "Same as --node-directory .".
• on Windows, backslashes in the default basedir path displayed in the help are doubled unnecessarily; see #1135.

These were also fixed. The help for tahoe start --help, for instance, includes something like:

  -C, --basedir=          Same as --node-directory.
  -d, --node-directory=   Specify which Tahoe node directory should be used.
                          [default for most commands:
                          'D:\cygwin\home\David\.tahoe']

and for tahoe run --help:

  -C, --basedir=          Same as --node-directory.
  -d, --node-directory=   Specify the directory of the node to be run. [default,
                          for 'tahoe run' only: current directory]

(It is ugly that the default for tahoe run is different, but I didn't want to break compatibility.)