Before this patch, output for invalid top-level and sub-commands differed.
For top-level commands, the CLI would print an error-message and a suggestion
to use `--help`. For missing *subcommands*, we would hit a different code-path,
and different output, which includes full "usage" / "help" output.
While it is a common convention to show usage output, and may have been
a nice gesture when docker was still young and only had a few commands
and options ("you did something wrong; here's an overview of what you
can use"), that's no longer the case, and many commands have a _very_
long output.
The result of this is that the error message, which is the relevant
information in this case - "You mis-typed something" - is lost in the
output, and hard to find (sometimes even requiring scrolling back).
The output is also confusing, because it _looks_ like something ran
successfully (most of the output is not about the error!).
Even further; the suggested resolution (try `--help` to see the correct
options) is rather redundant, because running teh command with `--help`
produces _exactly_ the same output as was just showh, baring the error
message. As a fun fact, due to the usage output being printed, the
output even contains not one, but _two_ "call to actions";
- `See 'docker volume --help'.` (under the erro message)
- `Run 'docker volume COMMAND --help' for more information on a command.`
(under the usage output)
In short; the output is too verbose, confusing, and doesn't provide
a good UX. Let's reduce the output produced so that the focus is on the
important information.
This patch:
- Changes the usage to the short-usage.
- Changes the error-message to mention the _full_ command instead of only
the command after `docker` (so `docker no-such-command` instead of
`no-such-command`).
- Prefixes the error message with the binary / root-command name
(usually `docker:`); this is something we can still decide on, but
it's a pattern we already use in some places. The motivation for this
is that `docker` commands can often produce output that's a combination
of output from the CLI itself, output from the daemon, and even output
from the container. The `docker:` prefix helps to distinguish where
the message originated from (the `docker` CLI in this case).
- Adds an empty line between the error-message and the "call to action"
(`Run 'docker volume --help'...` in the example below). This helps
separating the error message ("unkown flag") from the call-to-action.
Before this patch:
Unknown top-level command:
docker nosuchcommand foo
docker: 'nosuchcommand' is not a docker command.
See 'docker --help'
Unknown sub-command:
docker volume nosuchcommand foo
Usage: docker volume COMMAND
Manage volumes
Commands:
create Create a volume
inspect Display detailed information on one or more volumes
ls List volumes
prune Remove unused local volumes
rm Remove one or more volumes
update Update a volume (cluster volumes only)
Run 'docker volume COMMAND --help' for more information on a command.
After this patch:
Unknown top-level command:
docker nosuchcommand foo
docker: unknown command: docker nosuchcommand
Run 'docker --help' for more information
Unknown sub-command:
docker volume nosuchcommand foo
docker: unknown command: 'docker volume nosuchcommand'
Usage: docker volume COMMAND
Run 'docker volume --help' for more information
Signed-off-by: Sebastiaan van Stijn <github@gone.nl>
To help with this add a bad plugin which produces invalid metadata and arrange
for it to be built in the e2e container.
Signed-off-by: Ian Campbell <ijc@docker.com>
Sebastiaan van Stijn
Ian Campbell