tldr

tldr-python-client

🐍 Official Python command-line client for tldr pages 📚.

Installation

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from PyPI

pip install tldr

from Arch Linux repository

sudo pacman -S tldr

from Fedora packages repository

sudo dnf install tldr

from Snap Store

sudo snap install tldr

Usage

usage: tldr command [options]

Python command line client for tldr

positional arguments:
  command               command to lookup

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --version         show program's version number and exit
  --search "KEYWORDS"   Search for a specific command from a query
  -u, --update, --update_cache
                        Update the local cache of pages and exit
  -k, --clear-cache     Delete the local cache of pages and exit
  -p PLATFORM, --platform PLATFORM
                        Override the operating system [android, freebsd, linux, netbsd, openbsd, osx, sunos, windows, common]
  -l, --list            List all available commands for operating system
  -s SOURCE, --source SOURCE
                        Override the default page source
  -c, --color           Override color stripping
  -r, --render          Render local markdown files
  -L LANGUAGE, --language LANGUAGE
                        Override the default language
  -m, --markdown        Just print the plain page file.
  --short-options       Display shortform options over longform
  --long-options        Display longform options over shortform
  --print-completion {bash,zsh,tcsh}
                        print shell completion script

Configuration

You can configure the behavior and output of the tldr client by setting environment variables. For example, in the .bashrc file:

export TLDR_COLOR_NAME="cyan"
export TLDR_COLOR_DESCRIPTION="white"
export TLDR_COLOR_EXAMPLE="green"
export TLDR_COLOR_COMMAND="red"
export TLDR_COLOR_PARAMETER="white"
export TLDR_LANGUAGE="es"
export TLDR_CACHE_ENABLED=1
export TLDR_CACHE_MAX_AGE=720
export TLDR_PAGES_SOURCE_LOCATION="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tldr-pages/tldr/main/pages"
export TLDR_DOWNLOAD_CACHE_LOCATION="https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr/releases/latest/download/tldr.zip"
export TLDR_OPTIONS=short

Cache

Cache is downloaded from TLDR_DOWNLOAD_CACHE_LOCATION (defaults to the one described in the client specification), unzipped and extracted into the local cache directory. Pages are loaded directly from TLDR_PAGES_SOURCE_LOCATION if tldr <command> is used.

• TLDR_CACHE_ENABLED (default is 1):
  • If set to 1, the client will first try to load from cache, and fall back to fetching from the internet if the cache doesn't exist or is too old.
  • If set to 0, the client will fetch from the internet, and fall back to the cache if the page cannot be fetched from the internet.
• TLDR_CACHE_MAX_AGE (default is 168 hours, which is equivalent to a week): maximum age of the cache in hours to be considered as valid when TLDR_CACHE_ENABLED is set to 1.

Cache location

In order of precedence:

• $XDG_CACHE_HOME/tldr
• $HOME/.cache/tldr
• ~/.cache/tldr

If you are experiencing issues with tldr, consider deleting the cache files before trying other measures:

tldr --clear-cache

Autocomplete

shtab is required for autocompletion using the --print-completion argument.

# bash
tldr --print-completion bash | sudo tee "$BASH_COMPLETION_COMPAT_DIR"/tldr

# zsh (it is recommended to check where zsh/site-functions directory is located)
## for macOS:
tldr --print-completion zsh | sudo tee /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_tldr
## for Linux:
tldr --print-completion zsh | sudo tee /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_tldr

See the shtab docs for other installation methods and supported shells.

For autocomplete in fish, while it is not supported in shtab yet, please see #183 for manually adding an autocomplete for tldr for fish.

SSL Inspection

For networks that sit behind a proxy, it may be necessary to disable SSL verification for the client to function. Setting the following:

• TLDR_ALLOW_INSECURE=1

will disable SSL certificate inspection. This should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

Alternatively, It is possible to use a different certificate store/bundle by setting:

• TLDR_CERT=/path/to/certificates.crt

Colors

Values of the TLDR_COLOR_x variables may consist of three parts:

• Font color: blue, green, yellow, cyan, magenta, white, grey, red
• Background color: on_blue, on_cyan, on_magenta, on_white, on_grey, on_yellow, on_red, on_green
• Additional effects, which depend on the platform: reverse, blink, dark, concealed, underline, bold

You may specify as many additional effects as you want, while only one of font and background color.

Any of the values above may be omitted. For example, you can do similar things as the following:

• TLDR_COLOR_NAME="" use default system font color with default background color without any effects
• TLDR_COLOR_DESCRIPTION="white" for white text on default system background color without any effects
• TLDR_COLOR_NAME="cyan dark" for dark cyan text on default system background color
• TLDR_COLOR_NAME="on_red" for default system font color on the red background color
• TLDR_COLOR_PARAMETER="red on_yellow underline" for underlined red text on yellow background
• TLDR_COLOR_NAME="bold underline" for default system font and background colors with underline and bolded effects

Language

The language that tldr will use is dependent on several factors. If you specify a language via the --language flag, tldr will attempt to use that language and only that language. Otherwise, it will try to use the language specified by TLDR_LANGUAGE. If it is not set, or the page does not exist in that language, then tldr will use the language set using LANGUAGE and LANG (ignoring the values C and POSIX).

If neither is set, then tldr will always attempt to get the en page. Finally, if LANG is set, it uses LANGUAGE, if set, first, as the priority list to try languages in, followed by LANG if not included in LANGUAGE and en as a fallback (assuming it does not already appear somewhere in LANGUAGE or LANG).

All language values should be set to a value that follows RFC 1766, with the special exceptions of C and POSIX which are ignored.

Remote source

If you wish to use your own instance of the tldr pages instead of the default repository, you can either use the --source flag when using tldr or by specifying the following environment variables:

• TLDR_PAGES_SOURCE_LOCATION to control where to get individual pages from.
  • defaults to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tldr-pages/tldr/main/pages.
  • it can also point to a local directory using file:///path/to/directory.
• TLDR_DOWNLOAD_CACHE_LOCATION to control where to pull a zip of all pages from.
  • defaults to https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr/releases/latest/download/tldr.zip.

Command options

Pages might contain {{[*|*]}} patterns to let the client decide whether to show shortform or longform versions of options. This can be configured with TLDR_OPTIONS, which accepts values short, long and both.