Anything you wanted to do with --help and --version:

• checks these arguments in process.argv, so you don't have to;
• extracts version from your package.json file;
• returns functions that give you both --help and --version, in case you need to handle them differently;
• returns the function that prints --help and exits with the given code;
• highly configurable: you can set process.argv, stdout and stderr streams, and even process.exit function — this means testing won't be a problem.

#!/usr/bin/env node

var Cli = require('help-version');

var cli = Cli('Usage:  my-cat [file]');

cli.version()
//=> "v0.1.0"

if (process.argv.length != 3) {
  // Show help and exit with code 1.
  cli.help(1);
}

fs.createReadStream(process.argv[2])
  .pipe(process.stdout);

Catches --help and --version automatically.

$ ./cat.js --help
Usage:  my-cat [file]
$ ./cat.js --version
v0.1.0
$ ./cat.js file.txt
contents of file.txt

• helpText {String | Function} — help text to print on --help, or function to produce it.

Checks opts.argv for --help or --version.

1. If --help is found, prints helpText to opts.stdout and calls opts.exit.

2. If --version is found, prints app version (determined from the version field from your local package.json) to opts.stdout and calls opts.exit.

Returns object with two (bound) methods: cli.help([code], [stream]) and cli.version([code], [stream]).

With no arguments, returns the help string.

With one or two arguments, writes it to stream instead and exits (via opts.exit) with code. stream defaults to opts.stdout if code==0 and opts.stderr otherwise.

With no arguments, returns the version string.

With one or two arguments, writes it to the stream instead and exits (via opts.exit) with code. stream defaults to opts.stdout if code==0 and opts.stderr otherwise.

npm install help-version

MIT