Subject: Re: bug#34651: guix commands should print a message, if they produce only trivial output by default

From: swedebugia <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2019 18:29:04 +0100

"Björn Höfling" <[email-masked]> skrev: (25 februari 2019 17:24:56 CET)
>I noticed that if you call "guix COMMAND" for some COMMANDs without any
>options given, they produce something which is not very useful to the
>user. I first noticed it with guix pack:
>
>When "guix pack" is run without any options, it builds an empty pack:
>
>$ guix pack
>/gnu/store/2ys9fn6h95209piqhyxli5pf2c4mp7zp-tarball-pack.tar.gz
>$ tar tzvf
>/gnu/store/2ys9fn6h95209piqhyxli5pf2c4mp7zp-tarball-pack.tar.gz
>drwxrwxr-t root/root         0 1970-01-01 01:00 ./gnu/store/
>dr-xr-xr-x root/root         0 1970-01-01 01:00
>./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/
>dr-xr-xr-x root/root         0 1970-01-01 01:00
>./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/etc/
>-r--r--r-- root/root       414 1970-01-01 01:00
>./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/etc/profile
>-r--r--r-- root/root        37 1970-01-01 01:00
>./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/manifest
>
>I think from a user perspective it would be better to print a help
>message and not build an empty pack.
>
>On the other hand, I tried out other guix commands and at least it is a
>consistent behaviour, they start with the default values, like "guix
>graph" outputs just an empty graph.
>
>"guix system" complains it needs a subcommand, which is a different
>case.
>
>But then again we have this complaint:
>
>guix system container
>guix system: error: wrong number of arguments for action 'container'
>
>WDYT?
>
>Björn

I think we should print helpful hints or the contents of --help in these situations. 
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