Issue #11174: Add argparse.MetavarTypeHelpFormatter, which uses type names
for the names of optional and positional arguments in help messages.
diff --git a/Doc/library/argparse.rst b/Doc/library/argparse.rst
index 8bd3ca5..7a89654 100644
--- a/Doc/library/argparse.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/argparse.rst
@@ -356,13 +356,10 @@
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:class:`ArgumentParser` objects allow the help formatting to be customized by
-specifying an alternate formatting class. Currently, there are three such
-classes: :class:`argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter`,
-:class:`argparse.RawTextHelpFormatter` and
-:class:`argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter`. The first two allow more
-control over how textual descriptions are displayed, while the last
-automatically adds information about argument default values.
+specifying an alternate formatting class.
+:class:`RawDescriptionHelpFormatter` and :class:`RawTextHelpFormatter` give
+more control over how textual descriptions are displayed.
By default, :class:`ArgumentParser` objects line-wrap the description_ and
epilog_ texts in command-line help messages::
@@ -386,7 +383,7 @@
likewise for this epilog whose whitespace will be cleaned up and whose words
will be wrapped across a couple lines
-Passing :class:`argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter` as ``formatter_class=``
+Passing :class:`RawDescriptionHelpFormatter` as ``formatter_class=``
indicates that description_ and epilog_ are already correctly formatted and
should not be line-wrapped::
@@ -412,11 +409,11 @@
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-:class:`RawTextHelpFormatter` maintains whitespace for all sorts of help text
+:class:`RawTextHelpFormatter` maintains whitespace for all sorts of help text,
including argument descriptions.
-The other formatter class available, :class:`ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter`,
-will add information about the default value of each of the arguments::
+:class:`ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter` automatically adds information about
+default values to each of the argument help messages::
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
... prog='PROG',
@@ -433,6 +430,25 @@
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--foo FOO FOO! (default: 42)
+:class:`MetavarTypeHelpFormatter` uses the name of the type_ argument for each
+argument as as the display name for its values (rather than using the dest_
+as the regular formatter does)::
+
+ >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+ ... prog='PROG',
+ ... formatter_class=argparse.MetavarTypeHelpFormatter)
+ >>> parser.add_argument('--foo', type=int)
+ >>> parser.add_argument('bar', type=float)
+ >>> parser.print_help()
+ usage: PROG [-h] [--foo int] float
+
+ positional arguments:
+ float
+
+ optional arguments:
+ -h, --help show this help message and exit
+ --foo int
+
conflict_handler
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^