How to set CLI option ` --check-external-hash` to false?

[Mark]

When I run the command:

htmlproofer --check-external-hash false _site

I get the error:

htmlproofer 4.2.0 | Error:  false does not exist
Traceback (most recent call last):
        9: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/bin/htmlproofer:23:in `<main>'
        8: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/bin/htmlproofer:23:in `load'
        7: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/html-proofer-4.2.0/bin/htmlproofer:11:in `<top (required)>'
        6: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/mercenary-0.3.6/lib/mercenary.rb:19:in `program'
        5: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/mercenary-0.3.6/lib/mercenary/program.rb:42:in `go'
        4: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/mercenary-0.3.6/lib/mercenary/command.rb:220:in `execute'
        3: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/mercenary-0.3.6/lib/mercenary/command.rb:220:in `each'
        2: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/mercenary-0.3.6/lib/mercenary/command.rb:220:in `block in execute'
        1: from /Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/html-proofer-4.2.0/bin/htmlproofer:91:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'
/Users/remarkablemark/.rbenv/versions/2.7.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.7.0/gems/html-proofer-4.2.0/lib/html_proofer.rb:25:in `check_file': false does not exist (ArgumentError)

This is from htmlproofer --help:

--check-external-hash  Checks whether external hashes exist (even if the webpage exists) (default: `true`).

[Riccardo Porreca]

@remarkablemark, I had the same issue at some point, but the help in fact also hints to the fact that options should follow the path

Usage:

  htmlproofer PATH [options]

The following would do

htmlproofer _site --check-external-hash false

[Mark]

Thanks for the response @riccardoporreca! I tried your suggestion, but the build is still failing for me. See remarkablemark/remarkablemark.github.io#42:

Run bundle exec htmlproofer _site --check-external-hash false --ignore-status-codes 0,301,400,401,403,429,999
Running 3 checks (Images, Scripts, Links) in ["_site"] on *.html files...


Ran on 382 files!


For the Links > External check, the following failures were found:

* At _site/blog/201[6](https://github.com/remarkablemark/remarkablemark.github.io/runs/7481977717?check_suite_focus=true#step:5:7)/06/15/firefox-binary-webdriverjs/index.html:13[8](https://github.com/remarkablemark/remarkablemark.github.io/runs/7481977717?check_suite_focus=true#step:5:9):

  External link https://seleniumhq.github.io/selenium/docs/api/javascript/module/selenium-webdriver/firefox_exports_Options.html#setBinary failed: https://seleniumhq.github.io/selenium/docs/api/javascript/module/selenium-webdriver/firefox_exports_Options.html exists, but the hash 'setBinary' does not (status code 200)

...


HTML-Proofer found 75 failures!
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

[Riccardo Porreca]

@remarkablemark, indeed, the way such boolean command-line options are defined in

html-proofer/bin/htmlproofer

Lines 23 to 24 in a9c58af

 p.option 'check_external_hash', '--check-external-hash', 'Checks whether external hashes exist (even if the webpage exists) (default: `true`).' 
 p.option 'check_internal_hash', '--check-internal-hash', 'Checks whether internal hashes exist (even if the webpage exists) (default: `true`).' 

is meant for not specifying true/false at the command line, but always results in true if specified. This makes sense for opt-in options defaulting to false, but does not if the default is true (opt-out). So at the moment it is not possible to disable checking internal/external hashes from the command-line.

@gjtorikian, the natural approach to such cases (there are in fact others beyond hash checking) is to use enable the --no prefix as follows

  p.option 'check_external_hash', '--[no-]check-external-hash', 'Checks whether external hashes exist (even if the webpage exists) (default: `true`).'
  p.option 'check_internal_hash', '--[no-]check-internal-hash', 'Checks whether internal hashes exist (even if the webpage exists) (default: `true`).'

Passing true or false explicitly seems possible as follows, although it is not very natural given that for the opt-in options no explicit true is required:

  p.option 'check_external_hash', '--check-external-hash <false>', TrueClass, 'Checks whether external hashes exist (even if the webpage exists) (default: `true`).'
  p.option 'check_internal_hash', '--check-internal-hash <false>', TrueClass, 'Checks whether internal hashes exist (even if the webpage exists) (default: `true`).'

Happy to help out with a PR (including tests) for wither of the two approaches.

[Mark]

Thanks for the update @riccardoporreca. Would it be easier to default --check-external-hash and --check-internal-hash to false since then you can pass it as a CLI arg if you want to opt-in? Or would that constitute as a breaking change?

[Garen Torikian]

The CLI parser used here has often been a problem. The correct usage here is supposed to be --allow-hash-href=false. The next patch release of html-proofer should fix it. (I am releasing one after I have #313 solved)

[Mark]

Thank you @gjtorikian!