Argument --verbosity is not intuitive
- Dominant language
- C++
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Description
**Description**
--verbosity in Catch2 applications has a different behaviour than usually expected.
* --verbose/--verbosity is usually found to increase the output in a normal run for debugging purposes (see eg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbose_mode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbose_mode)). In Catch2, it is used solely to set the level of detail provided by running with --list-*.
* The verbosity level "quiet" is not very intuitive: one would expect that normal output is suppressed, eg only errors are printed.
* The command line help string "set output verbosity" does not indicate that only --list-* runs are affected, and that normal runs are not.
Preferably the option could be renamed to something like "level of detail" (and "quiet" replaced with "low"), as an alias not to break the interface. At least the help string should be changed to something like "set the level of detail for the --list-* options".
**Additional context**
--list-test-names-only was removed in https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2/issues/1190
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start by locating the --verbosity command-line option, its help text, and the handling of --list-* runs. Compare the current quiet and normal behaviors with the requested level-of-detail wording, then confirm whether the chosen outcome is an alias/rename or only a help-text change and update the relevant coverage.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- cpp
- Domain
- cli
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100