defaultValue for type Array null

[Townsheriff]

Fails to parse command line if defaultValue is null and type is String and multiple is true.

Using following options:

    {
        name: 'tags',
        alias: 't',
        type: String,
        multiple: true,
        defaultValue: null
    },

If --tags array values are provided in CLI then it parses them incorrectly. Last string is split in array of chars and everything else is ignored.

[75lb]

hi.. this is a rare use case - by specifying multiple: true you are telling command-line-args to return an array of zero or more values.. you don't need to specify defaultValue on a multiple, because you will always get an array back.

Still, i will look at this and potentially add some validation to prevent incorrect usage..

So, you want options.tags to return null (if no --tags were supplied) or [ 'tag1', 'tag2' etc ] if --tags tag1 tag2 etc was supplied, correct?

[Townsheriff]

Hi, no, it was a bug in my code and unexpected behaviour from package. Being a good person I reported it.
If no tags was supplies --tags then options.tags was null, but if --tags tag1 tag2 then options.tags was ['t', 'a', 'g', '2']

[75lb]

was unable to reproduce your particular ['t', 'a', 'g', '2'] output but did find a fix a bug..

the intended behaviour is that if multiple: true is set, you are guaranteed an array back in the output.. So, if your option definition is

{
  name: 'tags',
  alias: 't',
  type: String,
  multiple: true,
  defaultValue: null
},

and you did not pass a value for --tags on the command line, then your output would be

{
  tags: [ null ]
}

i.e. your default value as an array, as multiple: true guarantees an array.

You would get the same output if your definition looked like this:

{
  name: 'tags',
  alias: 't',
  type: String,
  multiple: true,
  defaultValue: [ null ]
},