Why does --version prints the bin name too?

[Alec Larson]

This seems odd to me. If yarn and npm are anything to go by, the --version flag should only print the version number. 😊

[Luke Edwards]

It's actually more common to see the binary or "display name" in the version output.:

$ go version
# go version go1.11.5 darwin/amd64

$ python3 -V
# Python 3.7.2

$ hugo version
# Hugo Static Site Generator v0.55.6/extended darwin/amd64 BuildDate: unknown

$ postgres -V
# postgres (PostgreSQL) 11.2

# ... more

[Alec Larson]

That's fair, but those aren't JS programs ;D

[Luke Edwards]

Off the top of my head 😉

$ next --version
# Next.js v8.1.0

[Alec Larson]

Hmm, maybe the version method could have a 2nd argument for this? :P

This isn't a huge issue though, so I would understand if you'd prefer to not add the extra code!

[Luke Edwards]

Forgot to update you @aleclarson – you can customize the version content by overriding the _version method of your program.

This is the default, accessing program name & its version thru this access:

_version() {
	console.log(`${this.bin}, ${this.ver}`);
}

To customize:

const prog = sade('foo');

// Customize `--version` output
// ~> printing the string directly instead `version()` setter
prog._version = () => console.log('v1.2.3');

[Manav Rathi]

Thank you @lukeed for the comment above, the _version override is what I also needed!

I had to tweak it slightly to get it to work in TypeScript, pasting here in case it is useful for others. This should've been enough:

const progAny = prog as any;
progAny._version = () => console.log(`ente ${getVersion()}`);

But we have the "no-explicit-any" TS eslint rule turned on. So we need the following more explicit code:

type ProgWithVersion = typeof prog & { _version: () => void };
(<ProgWithVersion>prog)._version = () => console.log(`ente ${getVersion()}`);