Cannot use lazy translation proxies in argparse help

[edgarrmondragon]

Bug report

Bug description:

#142960 introduced a regression for lazy strings in the help= parameter of ArgumentParser.add_argument(). This is used at least by the Sphinx CLI with its _TranslationProxy, at least during testing, where sphinx.locale.init_console is monkeypatched.

The new version of _expand_help() calls re.sub() on help strings when color is enabled, but re.sub() requires an actual str/bytes object and rejects string-like proxies that only implement __str__/__mod__.

# mre_argparse_lazy_str.py

import argparse


class LazyStr:
 """Minimal stand-in for gettext lazy-translation objects."""

 def __init__(self, message: str) -> None:
 self._message = message

 def __str__(self) -> str:
 return self._message # resolve lazily

 def __mod__(self, other):
 return self._message % other # supports 'help % params'

 def __contains__(self, item) -> bool:
 return item in self._message # supports '"%" in help'


p = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='demo')
# Works fine without color; fails with FORCE_COLOR=1 (or a color TTY):
p.add_argument('--output', default='out.txt', help=LazyStr('write to %(default)s'))
p.parse_args([])
print('OK – parsed without error')

$ uvx -p 3.15.0a4 python mre_argparse_lazy_str.py
OK – parsed without error

$ uvx -p 3.15.0a5 python mre_argparse_lazy_str.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/Users/personal/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.15.0a5-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.15/argparse.py", line 1822, in _check_help
 formatter._expand_help(action)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^
 File "/Users/personal/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.15.0a5-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.15/argparse.py", line 725, in _expand_help
 return _re.sub(fmt_spec, colorize, help_string, flags=_re.VERBOSE)
 ~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "/Users/personal/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.15.0a5-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.15/re/__init__.py", line 206, in sub
 return _compile(pattern, flags).sub(repl, string, count)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object, got 'LazyStr'

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/Users/personal/Contrib/sphinx-doc/sphinx/mre_argparse_lazy_str.py", line 47, in <module>
 p.add_argument('--output', default='out.txt', help=LazyStr('write to %(default)s'))
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "/Users/personal/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.15.0a5-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.15/argparse.py", line 1630, in add_argument
 self._check_help(action)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^
 File "/Users/personal/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.15.0a5-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.15/argparse.py", line 1824, in _check_help
 raise ValueError('badly formed help string') from exc
ValueError: badly formed help string

If this indeed something CPython rather than Sphinx should fix, the simplest solution would be to coerce help_string:

- return _re.sub(fmt_spec, colorize, help_string, flags=_re.VERBOSE)
+ return _re.sub(fmt_spec, colorize, str(help_string), flags=_re.VERBOSE)

and I'd be happy to send a PR if that's the case.

Related

• Cannot use format specifiers in argparse help #142950

CPython versions tested on:

3.15

Operating systems tested on:

macOS

Linked PRs

• gh-148468: Accept string-like help proxies in argparse #150276
• GH-148468: Accept string-like proxy objects in colorized argparse help #154653
• [3.15] GH-148468: Accept string-like proxy objects in colorized argparse help (GH-154653) #154946

[mpkocher]

Because of this explicit casting, doesn't this mean that any mistake from a user will never raise a type error?

For example, (... help=["hello"]) or (help=True) ?

Also, this LazyStr pattern doesn't really play nice with type checkers (perhaps this is a separate issue).

mypy mre_argparse.py 
mre_argparse.py:24: error: Argument "help" to "add_argument" of "_ActionsContainer" has incompatible type "LazyStr"; expected "str | None" [arg-type]

[edgarrmondragon]

Also, this LazyStr pattern doesn't really play nice with type checkers (perhaps this is a separate issue).

Yeah, I honestly think this something the sphinx folks should fix in their tests, but maybe the maintainers believe it's worth considering it a breaking change.

[savannahostrowski]

I think perhaps we could coerce to str, but not at the place suggested. Instead, we could just do it in colorize(). By that point help_string % params has already validated the input, so help=True or help=["hello"] still raise in the way they do today.