expose the `error`utility (in src/utils.js)

[paulovieira]

The error utility is used internally for cases like this:

$ node index.js --abc

  ERROR
    Invalid option: --abc

  Run `$ my-cli-app --help` for more info.

https://github.com/lukeed/sade/blob/master/src/utils.js#L79-L84

But even if all the options are accepted by sade, they might not be valid (example: 2 options might conflict with each other). The user is responsible for these app-specific validations.

It would then be useful if sade could provide a prog.error(message).

Thanks for considering this.

UPDATE: I've made a fork for personal use where this feature is implemented. Is there any interest in a PR?

https://github.com/paulovieira/sade/commit/cd26309da9df6e1cadb8bcecbb84aaa5244cdd2d

UPDATE 2: below is the sade template that I'm using for my cli applications. Notice the call to the new prog.error utility (after the call to validateArgs), which would output this:

$ node cli.js --param1=aaa

  ERROR
    something is wrong

  Run `$ my-cli --help` for more info.

#!/usr/bin/env node

let Sade = require('sade');

// 1 - setup sade 

let isSingleCommand = true;
let prog = Sade('my-cli', isSingleCommand);

prog
  .example('--param1=123')
  .example('--param2=abc')

  .option('--param1', 'Help for param1')
  .option('--param2', 'Help for param2')

  .action(({ param1, param2, _ }) => {

    // do stuff...
  });

// 2 - lazy parse + validation

let parseOptions = {
  lazy: true,
  unknown: arg => `Unknown option: ${arg}`
}

let { name, args, handler } = prog.parse(process.argv, parseOptions);
let { isValid, message } = validateArgs(args);

// 3 - proceed to the handler added in .action() or abort with a user-friendly message

if (isValid) { 
  handler.apply(null, args);
}
else {
  prog.error(prog.bin, message);
}

function validateArgs(options) {
  
  // return { isValid: true };
  return { isValid: false, message: 'something is wrong' };
}

[paulovieira]

For anyone interested in using this feature: a simple alternative is to extract the code from the error utility (https://github.com/lukeed/sade/blob/master/src/utils.js#L79-L84) to your own utilities module:

function cliError(bin, str, num=1) {

  const __ = '  ';
  const NL = '\n';

  let section = function section(str, arr) {
    if (!arr || !arr.length) return '';
    let i=0, out='';
    out += (NL + __ + str);
    for (; i < arr.length; i++) {
      out += (NL + __ + __ + arr[i]);
    }
    return out + NL;
  }

  let out = section('ERROR', [str]);
  out += (NL + __ + `Run \`$ ${bin} --help\` for more info.` + NL);
  
  console.error(out);
  process.exit(num);
}