App.ToMan() and App.ToMarkdown() don't respect DefaultText

[Alex Gustafsson]

My urfave/cli version is

v2.24.4

Checklist

• Are you running the latest v2 release? The list of releases is here.
• Did you check the manual for your release? The v2 manual is here
• Did you perform a search about this problem? Here's the GitHub guide about searching.

Dependency Management

• My project is using go modules.

Describe the bug

When using App.ToMan() or App.ToMarkdown(), the generated text uses the Value of a flag no matter if DefaultText is specified or not. This makes it inconsistent to the output of the help command.

To reproduce

Include a flag like the following in your app:

&cli.StringFlag{
  Name:        "foo",
  Value:       "default value"
  DefaultText: "default text"
}

Observed behavior

./main help

--foo (default: default text)

x, _ := App.ToMan()
fmt.Println(x)

...
\fB--foo\fP="": (default: default value)
...

x, _ := App.ToMarkdown()
fmt.Println(x)

...
**--foo**="": (default: default value)
....

Expected behavior

...
\fB--foo\fP="": (default: default text)
...

**--foo**="": (default: default text)

Additional context

None.

Want to fix this yourself?

If confirmed, I'd be happy to fix it.

Run go version and paste its output here

go version go1.19.6 darwin/amd64

Run go env and paste its output here

GO111MODULE=""
GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOCACHE="/path/to/Library/Caches/go-build"
GOENV="/path/to/Library/Application Support/go/env"
GOEXE=""
GOEXPERIMENT=""
GOFLAGS=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="darwin"
GOINSECURE=""
GOMODCACHE="/path/to/go/pkg/mod"
GONOPROXY=""
GONOSUMDB=""
GOOS="darwin"
GOPATH="/path/to/go"
GOPRIVATE=""
GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct"
GOROOT="/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.19.6/libexec"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"
GOTMPDIR=""
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.19.6/libexec/pkg/tool/darwin_amd64"
GOVCS=""
GOVERSION="go1.19.6"
GCCGO="gccgo"
GOAMD64="v1"
AR="ar"
CC="clang"
CXX="clang++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
GOMOD="/path/to/example/go.mod"
GOWORK=""
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -arch x86_64 -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/path/to/go-build3156486010=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common"

[Samuel Stoltenberg]

This is a bigger issue than I anticipated. I tried the following which gets the expected output but reopens an issue, and as expected breaks markdown and man tests.

Essentially reverting: #1206
Which would re-open this issue.

// GetDefaultText returns the default text for this flag
func (f *StringFlag) GetDefaultText() string {
	if f.DefaultText != "" {
		return f.DefaultText
	}
	
	// Changed from
	// if f.defaultValue == "" {
	// 	return f.defaultValue
	// }
	// return fmt.Sprintf("%q", f.defaultValue)
	return f.String()
}

And

// flagDetails returns a string containing the flags metadata
func flagDetails(flag DocGenerationFlag) string {
	description := flag.GetUsage()
	
	// Changed from
	// value := flag.GetValue()
	value := flag.GetDefaultText()
	
	if value != "" {
		description += " (default: " + value + ")"
	}
	return ": " + description
}

[dearchap]

@skelouse Yes. The help test/default text/values etc have been fine tuned over a long period to get the desired results. Its very tough to make changes without breaking something else. Do you want to work on it or else I can take a look

[Samuel Stoltenberg]

@skelouse Yes. The help test/default text/values etc have been fine tuned over a long period to get the desired results. Its very tough to make changes without breaking something else. Do you want to work on it or else I can take a look

Thanks for the offer, I'd rather not pick and pry at these!

[Alex Gustafsson]

@dearchap have you had the time to investigate this issue?

[dearchap]

@alexg-axis Not yet. Does #1721 solve your problem ?

[Alex Gustafsson]

No, unfortunately not. It makes use of the default value and not default text (if set).

[dearchap]

@alexg-axis Try this PR branch fix

[Alex Gustafsson]

@dearchap Thanks, I think we're getting close. This did however also change the behavior of things such as IntFlag with a set Value. Previously it would be documented as (default: 25), for example, when it now always becomes (default: 0).

If it's a "required side effect" of the fix, then I don't have too much against having to specify both Value and DefaultText, but it would of course be nicer to only have DefaultText override values so that I don't have to specify the default twice.

[dearchap]

@alexg-axis Here is the order of priority in display default

• DefaultText
• Value that was set initially in the field initializer
• Current Value set in the field.

So which condition are you hitting ?

[Alex Gustafsson]

Flag definition:

&cli.IntFlag{
  Name:  "some-flag",
  Usage: "Usage";
  Value: 25,
}

Previous output:

**--some-flag**="": Usage (default: 25)

\fB--some-flag\fP="": Usage (default: 25)

New output:

**--some-flag**="": Usage (default: 0)

\fB--some-flag\fP="": Usage (default: 0)

Here I would assume that I'm hitting the second item in your list - an initial value set in the field initializer. Thus I would expect the new output to match the old output here.

[tetra12]

Still not working v2.25.7:

Flags: []cli.Flag{
  &cli.StringFlag{
  Name:        "name",
  Aliases:     []string{"n"},
  Usage:       "Route name",
  Required:    true,
  Value:       "foo",
  DefaultText: "foo",
  Action:      s.Delete,
  },
}

NAME:
route delete - delete

USAGE:
route delete [command options] [arguments...]

OPTIONS:
--name value, -n value Route name (default: foo)
--help, -h show help
xxxx 18:47:44 Required flag "name" not set

[dearchap]

@alexg-axis Please try the PR fix.

[Alex Gustafsson]

@dearchap seems to be working well! Thanks!