Unsolicited messages output to stdout, --quiet does not do anything

[rdaysky]

1. Install Poetry 0.12.17
2. poetry config settings.virtualenvs.create false
3. Try to run something using poetry run. Observe that a message “Skipping virtualenv creation, as specified in config file.” is output to stdout.
4. Try poetry -q run, poetry run --quiet and other variations thereof. Observe that nothing is run and an exception is raised.

There should be a way to suppress all output other than that of the command being run. Otherwise it’s impossible to run scripts reliably.

[finswimmer]

Hello @rdaysky ,

I took a quick look at the code and it seems that those messages are all printed to stdout. A cleaner way would be, to print them to stderr, to not get in conflict with the programs output when redirecting to other programs.

Thanks for pointing to it!

fin swimmer

[rdaysky]

That would be an improvement for sure, but still the right thing to do is either to make -q actually work, suppressing all output, or, even better, not to output any such messages unless -v is present.

[finswimmer]

Hello @rdaysky ,

I see. Could you please try the latest preview version? For me run e.g. poetry -q run pip list suppresses all kind of output.

I will have a look on how/if it is possible to suppress all info/debugging/... messages but still print the output of the running program.

fin swimmer

[finswimmer]

Hello again,

I talked to @sdispater and this is something we definitely add to our agenda. But at the moments the priority are tasks that has to be done before launching poetry 1.0. So this issue will most likely not be handled before 1.1.

I hope you can have patience with us.

fin swimmer

[legel]

Greetings, this is indeed very annoying. There should absolutely be a flag for quickly setting verbosity to warnings / errors only. These logs are useless, I don't need to know that you've found the environment context file for the 100th time successfully. In general print statements should be avoided once functionality is stable, but otherwise at least give us the opportunity to shut them up.

[sfermigier]

I've been struggling with a similar issue (with Poetry 1.1.4) and I believe I have found several inconsistencies:

• poetry -q install is quiet, but doesn't do anything (seemingly)
• poetry install -q works, but is as verbose as poetry install
• poetry -q update doesn't do anything (quietly)
• poetry update -q works as expected, quietly
• poetry --ansi <whatever> gives an error message. Same with --no-ansi or -v.

This is also inconsistent with the usage:

USAGE
  poetry [-h] [-q] [-v [<...>]] [-V] [--ansi] [--no-ansi] [-n] <command> [<arg1>] ... [<argN>]

Ideally, it shouldn't matter wether -q, -v, --ansi, etc. are before or after the command.

[dimaqq]

I guess the worst offender is:

poetry -q install no output, doesn't do anything, successful return value 😱

[dimaqq]

While there is some difference between poetry install -vv vs. poetry install -q, the latter is still very chatty.

I've run both under script on an open-source library aiodynamo, let's call it warm start (deps downloaded and cached; new venv every time):

• poetry install -vv: 204KB of output
• poetry install -q: 160KB of output

The diff shows that -vv adds bits like "skipped", "for following reason", "not required".
The baseline -q are realtime updates "Installing...", package names, completion.

IMO the situation is much worse for large packages (more deps, more permutations during concurrent install).
Also it's notably worse for cold boot (e.g. CI flow without cached downloads, where downloading NN% is displayed).

Maybe let's add a help-wanted label?

[camerondavison]

+1 tools should write to stderr. I have a python script that outputs json that I want to send through jq and cannot because it is outputting Skipping virtualenv creation, as specified in config file. when I run it in CI

seems like a good first step would be to make sure that everything that outputs as part of poetry run is stderr

[benriou]

I would be interested on an update on this. :)

[metov]

I'll add my +1 here. This is clearly the sort of informational message that should be directed to standard error, not standard out, as a matter of general Unix software design best practices. However, given that poetry is not just any old program, but a Python package framework, this issue is doubly important: When poetry pollutes standard out with random warnings, it becomes very difficult to follow the unix philosophy in CLI programs.

[tedivm]

Since this has been on the agenda since 2019 is there any hope of it actually happening?

[dimbleby]

@tedivm there's always hope, please submit an MR

Although funnily enough you might have got in just immediately after #5179 was merged, perhaps this is fixed already

[jjorissen52]

This one just bit us in a deployment. Something happened to break poetry install in a previously working GH Action (probably not poetry's fault), so I tried to move over to a requirements.txt based installation instead (poetry export --without-hashes --format=requirements.txt > requirements.txt) and saw this wonderful error message on the next attempted run:

ERROR: Invalid requirement: 'Skipping virtualenv creation, as specified in config file.' (from line 1 of requirements.txt)
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

Naturally, you'd want to try poetry -q ... after that, but uhhh... well...

poetry export -q --without-hashes --format=requirements.txt | wc -l
# 0

poetry -q also appears to suppress the stdout of the actual command you were trying to use.

[dimbleby]

You are complaining about the exact opposite of what this issue describes which is "--quiet does not do anything".

(What were you expecting --quiet to do if not make the output quiet? No matter: that poetry export uses a virtual environment is fixed in master and meanwhile you can use -o requirements.txt instead of going via stdout)

This issue should be closed.

[jjorissen52]

In my head, I was complaining about unexpected behavior surrounding what poetry puts to stdout. From the original issue:

There should be a way to suppress all output other than that of the command being run. Otherwise it’s impossible to run scripts reliably.

So I don't know if -q suppressing even the actual output of actually the intended command to be run would be considered the opposite of what this issue is for, but sure.

Notice also, the first half of the title is

Unsolicited messages output to stdout

Not sure if you saw the error message

ERROR: Invalid requirement: 'Skipping virtualenv creation, as specified in config file.' (from line 1 of requirements.txt)
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

wherein poetry ouputs unsolicited messages to stdout

[neersighted]

I think everyone is a bit turned around and frustrated here -- to recap, -q suppresses all output on stdout, which will include normal poetry export output (hey, a weird choice, but it's an opt-in and -o exists). This original issue has been solved and I will close it.

Issues with the export plugin are at https://github.com/python-poetry/poetry-plugin-export, though this is fixed in master and the next version of that plugin. In the mean time, you can simply use poetry export -o requirements.txt and read from that requirements.txt file -- there will be no erroneous output there.

The Skipping virtualenv creation message (and virtual environment messaging) in general should likely be written to stderr, but that is another issue entirely.

[jjorissen52]

@neersighted Thank you.

[rdaysky]

@neersighted The original issue was about Poetry outputting unsolicited messages to stdout when invoking poetry run. Does this no longer happen?

[neersighted]

They should now be on stderr -- if any were overlooked, please open a new issue with a reproduction/specifics.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.