Suppose I have the following argparse snippet:

diags.cmdln_parser.add_argument( '--scan-time',
                     action  = 'store',
                     nargs="?",
                     type    = int,
                     default = 5,
                     help    = "Wait SCAN-TIME seconds between status checks.")

Currently, --help returns:

usage: connection_check.py [-h]
                             [--version] [--scan-time [SCAN_TIME]]

          Test the reliability/uptime of a connection.



optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
--version             show program's version number and exit
--scan-time [SCAN_TIME]
                    Wait SCAN-TIME seconds between status checks.

I would prefer something like:

--scan-time [SCAN_TIME]
                    Wait SCAN-TIME seconds between status checks.
                    (Default = 5)

Peeking at the help formatter code revealed limited options. Is there a clever way to get argparse to print the default value for --scan-time in a similar fashion, or should I just subclass the help formatter?

4 Answers
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