Customize help output from optparse (or argparse)

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn (Thu, 12 May 2011 22:22:20 +0200)
> Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> > I'm using optparse for a little Python script.
> > 
> > 1. The output from "--help" is:
> > """
> > Usage: script.py <arg>
> > 
> > script.py does something
> > 
> > Options:
> >   -h, --help   show this help message and exit
> > """
> > 
> > I would prefer to have the description before the usage, like...
> > """
> > script.py does something
> > 
> > Usage: script.py <arg>
> > 
> > Options:
> >   -h, --help   show this help message and exit
> > """
> > [...]
> > Is that possible with either optparse or the "new kid on the block"
> > argparse. If so how?
> 
> You can easily have #1 with optparse.OptionParser(usage="…")¹, but optparse 
> is deprecated in favor of argparse.ArgumentParser.

I'm already using usage. That's where optparse has it from. Putting the 
usage message into the description and vice versa is of course not a 
viable way to go.

Thorsten