[New-bugs-announce] [issue43942] RawDescriptionHelpFormatter seems to be ignored for argument descriptions

[Reuben Thomas]

New submission from Reuben Thomas <rrt at sc3d.org>:

The documentation seems very clear on this subject:

"RawTextHelpFormatter maintains whitespace for all sorts of help text, including argument descriptions. However, multiple new lines are replaced with one."

But consider the following code:

```
from argparse import ArgumentParser, RawDescriptionHelpFormatter

parser = ArgumentParser(
  description='A simple templating system.',
  epilog='Use `-\' as a file name to indicate standard input or output.',
  formatter_class=RawDescriptionHelpFormatter,
)
parser.add_argument(
  '--verbose',
  help='show on standard error the path being built,\nand the names of files built, included and pasted'
)
args = parser.parse_args()
```

Then try running it in a suitably-sized terminal:

$ python3 test.py --help
usage: test.py [-h] [--verbose VERBOSE]

A simple templating system.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  --verbose VERBOSE  show on standard error the path being built, and the names of files built, included and pasted

Use `-' as a file name to indicate standard input or output.
```

The \n in the help for the `--verbose` argument is not respected.

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 391890
nosy: rrt
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: RawDescriptionHelpFormatter seems to be ignored for argument descriptions
versions: Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue43942>
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