Pylint's "usage" output does not say you have to specify the files to scan.

[ax-jrobb]

Bug description

If you just run pylint, you get the usage/help output, with exit code 32 (options error).

The actual problem is that you haven't specified any files, but literally nothing about this output communicates that fact. --long-help doesn't either.

Configuration

No response

Command used

pylint

Pylint output

The first line of the output is:

usage: pylint [options]


Followed by the standard list of options and switches -- but not one single mention of the need to specify files.

Expected behavior

IMO, the usage text should be:

usage: pylint [options] [files]

This should be accompanied by an explanation that files supports **, and that it is required unless you're specifying an option that causes pylint not to need those (e.g. because you used --from-stdin, or a command that doesn't involve a scan, such as --help, --full-documentation, etc.).

And, if you invoke pylint without specifying any files to scan, the usage text should be preceded by an error message saying you didn't specify any files to scan.

Alternative solution

Alternatively, pylint could scan the current directory recursively by default, i.e. the equivalent of:

pylint "$(pwd)"'/**/*.py'

This should still be paired with an update to the usage information to make clear that the user can specify a list of files.

Pylint version

pylint 2.17.5
astroid 2.15.6
Python 3.11.4 (main, Jul 28 2023, 14:44:21) [Clang 14.0.3 (clang-1403.0.22.14.1)]

OS / Environment

macOS 13.4.1

Additional dependencies

No response

[Pierre-Sassoulas]

Duplicate of #5701 this is going to be fixed in 3.0