Unformatted description configuration in generated help

When displaying the generated usage help of a parent command with sub commands, the description configuration is not using format for “%n”. The printed description shows the text unformatted:

Commands:
          dump  %nPrint %ninformation.

The following code can be used to replicate the issue:

public class Demo {
    @Command(name = "main", description = "%nPrint information.", subcommands = Dump.class)
    static class MainCommand implements Runnable {

        @CommandLine.Option(names = {"-h", "--help"}, usageHelp = true, description = "Print this help message.")
        private boolean showHelp;

        public void run() {
            System.out.println("main command");
        }
    }

    @Command(name = "dump", description = "%nPrint %ninformation.")
    static class Dump implements Runnable {

        @ParentCommand
        private MainCommand parent;

        @CommandLine.Option(names = {"-h", "--help"}, usageHelp = true, description = "Print this help message.")
        private boolean showHelp;

        @Override
        public void run() {
            System.out.println("sub command");
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        test1();
        //test2();
    }

    public static void test1() {
        CommandLine.run(new MainCommand(), System.out, "-h");
        /* 
        Usage: main [-h]

        Print information.
          -h, --help                  Print this help message.
        Commands:
          dump  %nPrint %ninformation.
         */
    }

    public static void test2() {
        CommandLine.run(new MainCommand(), System.out, "dump", "-h");
        /*
        Usage: dump [-h]
        
        Print
        information.
          -h, --help                  Print this help message.
         */
    }
}

Version: piclocli 2.3.0

Tks,

[remkop]

Merged into master. Thanks again for the pull request!

[remkop]

It’s been a while since I looked at this code. I now see what you mean with the %s formatting parameters. You are correct.

Still, I never was happy with this %s formatting since it is only useful for users who use the Help API directly; it cannot be used via the annotations API or the UsageMessageSpec programmatic API. #526 is a better approach, I think.

I am considering removing the parameters in picocli 4.0.