What does it mean when Click exits with exit code 2?

Question

I am currently testing a Click CLI application and get result.exit_code == 2. Why does that happen?

Stollings

Where are you getting that error? It's probably almost same as any other exit code 2. Usually means bad input data. – Sowell

What's your code, and what are the arguments you passed to the script? – Everybody

Related. From your deleted answer, it seems that you realize you're passing the input data incorrectly, so I'm a bit unsure of what you're asking. – Sowell

I thought I figured it out and wrote the answer while I was running the tests. Still failed, even with the adjustments :-( – Stollings

I had this error 2 a couple of times in other projects before and thought I'd help my future self with that question / answer. – Stollings

I pass a list of strings to the function. I have no idea what is wrong there and I cannot share all of the code. Is there any way to get more information from click? – Stollings

You don't have to (and shouldn't) share all of the code. You should post a minimal reproducible example. – Everybody

@Everybody You're funny^^ - Do you assume with 35k points I don't know this link? – Stollings

Then why have you not provided one? – Sowell

Because it is not that simple and not necessary for this question (as proven by my answer and the answer of Chris). – Stollings

Answer 1

This appears to indicate a usage error:

An internal exception that signals a usage error. This typically aborts any further handling.

This is consistent with Click's own tests, e.g.

• https://github.com/pallets/click/blob/123dd717439d8620d8d6be5574d2c9f007952326/tests/test_arguments.py#L82
• https://github.com/pallets/click/blob/123dd717439d8620d8d6be5574d2c9f007952326/tests/test_arguments.py#L190
• https://github.com/pallets/click/blob/123dd717439d8620d8d6be5574d2c9f007952326/tests/test_arguments.py#L201
• https://github.com/pallets/click/blob/123dd717439d8620d8d6be5574d2c9f007952326/tests/test_formatting.py#L157
• https://github.com/pallets/click/blob/123dd717439d8620d8d6be5574d2c9f007952326/tests/test_formatting.py#L177
• https://github.com/pallets/click/blob/123dd717439d8620d8d6be5574d2c9f007952326/tests/test_formatting.py#L193

Rochette

Answer 2

I ran

result = runner.invoke(cli, ['sync'])

instead of

result = runner.invoke(cli, ['--debug', 'sync'])

So you need to specify the flag as entered via CLI, not only pass the parameters consumed by the function if you use @click.option.

Additionally, the I made a typo for one of the flags.

How to debug

1. Look at the parameters you pass to runner.invoke (simplest: print it)
2. Execute it via CLI (e.g. cli(['--debug', 'sync']))

In my case this gave me the message

Error: no such option: --sync  Did you mean --syncs?

Stollings