When using "help <SubCommand>", the exit code is 0, despite exitCodeOnUsageHelp = ExitCode.USAGE

[marco-brandizi]

The title says almost all: I have a CLI app that is arranged as main command + subcommands. When I issue something like: java MainCommand help subCommand, the OS exit code is 0, not 2, despite both MainCommand.class and SubCommand are annotated with:

@Command ( ... exitCodeOnUsageHelp = ExitCode.USAGE, exitCodeOnVersionHelp = ExitCode.USAGE)

when doing java MainCommand -h, it exits with 2 as expected. Unless I'm missing something, to me it is a bug.

Until this is changed, it's possible to write a workaround like: in the static main(), check if the first argument is 'help'.

[remkop]

I think you are correct, and this is a bug in the implementation of picocli.CommandLine.HelpCommand.

This class currently implements Runnable.
To fix the issue, it should implement Callable<Integer> and should either
return subcommand.getCommandSpec().exitCodeOnUsageHelp() if a subcommand was specified, or
return parent.getCommandSpec().exitCodeOnUsageHelp() if not.

Will you be able to provide a pull request with tests for this?

[marco-brandizi]

Hi @remkop, I've tried to write a fix, but unfortunately, I don't have much time and I barely managed to change HelpCommand. It's hard to write a test and even without any changes, my clone doesn't build for me, mvn clean package gives me errors (starting with package org.junit does not exist), I can't use Gradle.

[remkop]

Note to self:

// src/test/java/picocli/HelpSubCommandTest.java

    @Command(name = "issue2355", exitCodeOnUsageHelp = 123)
    static class Issue2355 implements Runnable {
        @Override public void run() {}
    }

    @Test
    public void testIssue2355ExitCode() {
        @Command(name = "top", subcommands = Issue2355.class) class Top { }
        int actual = new CommandLine(new Top()).execute("help", "issue2355");
        assertEquals(123, actual);
    }