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GH-130645: Default to color help in argparse#136809
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StanFromIreland left a comment• edited
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LGTM, I like these:-)
Requested color expert.I think this can be skip-news since there is no change to the content? I see there was a NEWS entry for the previous PR, it was general enough that we could put it under it if that is possible?
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Co-authored-by: Łukasz Langa <lukasz@langa.pl>
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I can approve again if you really want me to.
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The rationale makes sense. My only concern would becmd.exe on Windows, where I've had bad experiences with ANSI codes before, but local testing demonstrates that things seem to be working.
A
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Colored help significantly improves readability and user experience by helping users visually group and separate different sections, options, and arguments. Modern terminals overwhelmingly support ANSI color codes, and most contemporary programming languages and CLI tools now default to colored output when appropriate.
This change aligns Python's argparse with current standards where color is the expected default behavior. Users find colored output particularly valuable for quickly scanning and understanding command-line help, as it creates natural visual hierarchy and reduces cognitive load when parsing complex option lists.
The existing color detection logic already gracefully falls back to plain text on unsupported terminals, ensuring backwards compatibility. Users who prefer monochrome output retain full control through standard terminal preferences and environment variables.
argparsehelp #130645