CLI Allows Single Dashes for Multi-Character Flags

[LukeAbby]

Because of Go conventions in the builtin flag package a single dash is always allowed. For example tsgo -showConfig.

This also shows up in tsgo -help which will print:

Usage of tsgo:
  -listFiles
        Print all of the files read during the compilation.
  -listFilesOnly
        Print names of files that are part of the compilation and then stop processing.
  -noCheck
        Disable full type checking (only critical parse and emit errors will be reported).
  -noEmit
        Disable emitting files from a compilation.
  -noLib
        Disable including any library files, including the default lib.d.ts.
  -outDir string
        Specify an output folder for all emitted files.
  -p string
        Compile the project given the path to its configuration file, or to a folder with a 'tsconfig.json'.
  -pprofDir string
        Generate pprof CPU/memory profiles to the given directory.
  -pretty
        Enable color and formatting in TypeScript's output to make compiler errors easier to read. (default true)
  -printTypes
        Print types defined in 'main.ts'.
  -project string
        Compile the project given the path to its configuration file, or to a folder with a 'tsconfig.json'.
  -q    Do not print diagnostics.
  -quiet
        Do not print diagnostics.
  -showConfig
        Print the final configuration instead of building.
  -singleThreaded
        Run in single threaded mode.
  -skipLibCheck
        Skip type checking all .d.ts files.

[jakebailey]

Yes, this is sort of intentional right now; tsgo tsc is the "real" CLI that will eventually swapped out to the root. Use that for max compat, though it is missing some functionality.

[LukeAbby]

Understood, tsgo tsc --help simply exits with status code 1 for me right now so I figured tsgo directly might've more accurately represented the flag logic

[jakebailey]

Yeah, --help doesn't work yet... 😅

[marikann]

Hello @jakebailey , i hope you're well.
I wanted to offer a potential interim solution for tsc ---help . Based on the TypeScript compiler options documentation(https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/compiler-options.html), I've created a basic implementation

It's a bit hacky/hard-coded but could serve as a stopgap until a more elegant solution is implemented. If this approach seems helpful, I could potentially clean it up and submit a PR depending on my availability. Let me know if you'd be interested in something like this

[jakebailey]

I don't think a hardcoded string for the --help would be a good idea; sorry. The real --help has multiple levels of help, and since we are in a WIP state, I think it'd be better to wait for a full implementation. Which, we'd happily accept if you sent a PR for it!

I'm going to close this issue; it's expected that the root tsgo entrypoint accept single dashed options for now.

[marikann]

I understand. Perhaps I'll work on a more comprehensive PR in the future. Thanks for the feedback!