help2md 1.5

Convert a help message to markdown text

• Convert a help message to markdown text
• Install the help2md module
• Function help2md
• Use the help2md module as a console script
  • Command help2md

Convert a help message to markdown text

This module provides the help2md Python function that converts a help message (the output from a command when the -h flag is given) to a valid and well-formated markdown text.

The module is inspired by the awk script help2md and my own version of this awk script updated to better match the help message generated by the argparse module: help2md-argparse.awk (web-friendly format).

Install the help2md module

The help2md module should be installed with pip:

pip install help2md

This will install the module help2md implementing the help2md function and the console script help2md. The help2md function is also embedded in the pypimdoc module. The source code of the module (without the console script part) can be found at my file repository.

Function help2md

help2md(help_msg: str) -> str

Convert a help message to markdown text

Convert a command help message (the output from a command when the -h flag is given) to a valid and well-formated markdown text. This function is tailored for the help messages produced by Python programs using the argparse module.

Arguments/return value:

help_msg: The help message to convert

returns: The markdown text

Use the help2md module as a console script

You can use the module as a console script to convert the help message output of a command to markdown. In this example the helpmessage of the pypimdoc command is converted to markdown and saved in the file pypimdoc-help.md:

pypimdoc -h | help2md -o pypimdoc-help.md

Command help2md

Convert a help message to markdown text

Usage:

help2md [-h] [-V] [-o OUTFILE] [-i INFILE]

Options:

Name	Description
-h, --help	show this help message and exit
-V, --version	show program's version number and exit
-o, --outfile OUTFILE	output file (default stdout)
-i, --infile INFILE	input file (default stdin)