optparse: usage

[spacecoyote]

I tried this:

usage = "Something, by Spacecoyote\nusage: %prog file [options]"
parser = OptionParser(usage)

test.py --help

and I expected:

Something, by Spacecoyote
usage: test.py file [options]

but I got:

usage: Something, by Spacecoyote
usage: test.py file [options]

Is there an easy way to make optparse not force the usage prompt to start with usage? Or do I have to implement this myself.

[bvdet]

I don't know of a way to do it other than changing the source file.

def format_usage (self, usage):
        return "%s" % usage
 
parser = OptionParser(usage='Something, by Spacecoyote\n%prog file [options]',
                      prog='YourFile.py', version='x.x',
                      description='This does not do anything'
                      )
opt, args = parser.parse_args()
 

Output:

>>> Something, by Spacecoyote
YourFile.py file [options]
This does not do anything
options:
  --version   show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit