util: Make -help more Unix and grep friendly #17841

This does not affect the Windows platform The current --help overview is ugly and pretty uncommon for the GNU (and probably unix userland). The biggest difference is that at Bitcoin Cores approach, there is a new line after every command. This isn't really friendly when using grep to get more informations about a command. Honestly IMO the current help page looks from its format more like a man rather than a help page.

As an example: Current:

Chain selection options:

  -chain=<chain>
       Use the chain <chain> (default: main). Allowed values: main, test,
       regtest

  -testnet
       Use the test chain. Equivalent to -chain=test.

This PR:

Chain selection options:

  -chain=<chain>                         Use the chain <chain> (default: 
                                         main). Allowed values: main, test, 
                                         regtest 


  -testnet                               Use the test chain. Equivalent to 
                                         -chain=test. 

It also adds a limit of 41 characters per arg name. That's why I also changed the parameter description of -whitelist

Why are your vscode settings part of this pull request?

Why are your vscode settings part of this pull request?

I accidentally added them. Removed it

Concept -0.

"--help overview is ugly"

I disagree that this PR makes the --help output more readable than master.

there is a new line after every command. This isn't really friendly when using grep to get more informations about a command.

If you'd like more context when grepping, you can pass grep -A, -C etc. i.e:

src/bitcoind -help | grep rpccookiefile
  -rpccookiefile=<loc>

src/bitcoind -help | grep -A2 rpccookiefile
  -rpccookiefile=<loc>
       Location of the auth cookie. Relative paths will be prefixed by a
       net-specific datadir location. (default: data dir)

You need to fix all the unit tests that are failing. You should always be running the unit tests, and fixing all issues before opening a PR (src/test/test_bitcoin --run_test=util_tests).

This PR (8da847ef6f3893f922eec0dd27b3762aedefebb2):

  -upgradewallet                         Upgrade wallet to latest format on 
                                         startup 


  -wallet=<path>                         Specify wallet database path. Can be 
                                         specified multiple times to load 
                                         multiple wallets. Path is interpreted 
                                         relative to <walletdir> if it is not 
                                         absolute, and will be created if it 
                                         does not exist (as a directory 
                                         containing a wallet.dat file and log 
                                         files). For backwards compatibility 
                                         this will also accept names of 
                                         existing data files in <walletdir>.) 


  -walletbroadcast                       Make the wallet broadcast 
                                         transactions (default: 1) 

master (35fff5be60e853455abc24713481544e91adfedb):

  -upgradewallet
       Upgrade wallet to latest format on startup

  -wallet=<path>
       Specify wallet database path. Can be specified multiple times to load
       multiple wallets. Path is interpreted relative to <walletdir> if
       it is not absolute, and will be created if it does not exist (as
       a directory containing a wallet.dat file and log files). For
       backwards compatibility this will also accept names of existing
       data files in <walletdir>.)

  -walletbroadcast
       Make the wallet broadcast transactions (default: 1)

This breaks gen-manpages.sh, no?

And why keep windows different?

If the motivation is to make it grep friendly then I agree with @fanquake.

Meh. Also ~0 on this, "ugly" is a matter of taste and doesn't really have a place in these kind of arguments. I prefer the current syntax instead of columnar view.

As for grep-ability yea this will get you the first line, which isn't super useful. What I generally do is bitcoind --help | less and then search in there with /. This gets you the whole description and a way to browse it.

-0.001

Not worth the change, additional code. grep -C 3 works decently as-is.

-0.1, unneeded and non-issue, grepping with -A/B/C flags works well.

Lost motivation on this PR as it isn’t a real issue currently.