[DRAFT] Make backwards compatibility slightly easier

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -31,8 +31,7 @@ time reading the [rich documentation](https://rich.readthedocs.io/).
         - `descriptive_header: str` replaced with `descriptive_headers: Sequence[str | rich.Column]`
             - Applies to parameter name when adding an argument to a parser as well as
               `set_descriptive_headers` and `get_descriptive_headers`
-        - `CompletionItem.description: str` changed to
-          `CompletionItem.descriptive_data: Sequence[str | rich.Column]`
+        - `CompletionItem.description` type expanded from `str` to `str | Sequence[Any]`
     - `decorators` module breaking changes:
         - `_set_parser_prog` renamed to `set_parser_prog` (without the leading underscore) and moved
           to `argparse_custom` module

cmd2/argparse_completer.py

@@ -582,7 +582,7 @@ def _format_completions(self, arg_state: _ArgumentState, completions: list[str]
                 border_style=Cmd2Style.TABLE_BORDER,
             )
             for item in completion_items:
-                hint_table.add_row(item, *item.descriptive_data)
+                hint_table.add_row(item, *item.description)
 
             # Generate the hint table string
             console = Cmd2GeneralConsole()

cmd2/argparse_custom.py

@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ def my_completer(self, text, line, begidx, endidx, arg_tokens)
 that value's name. The right column header is defined using the
 ``descriptive_headers`` parameter of add_argument(), which is a list of header
 names that defaults to ["Description"]. The right column values come from the
-``CompletionItem.descriptive_data`` member, which is a list with the same number
+``CompletionItem.description`` member, which is a list with the same number
 of items as columns defined in descriptive_headers.
 
 To use CompletionItems, just return them from your choices_provider or
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ def my_completer(self, text, line, begidx, endidx, arg_tokens)
         def get_items(self) -> list[CompletionItems]:
             \"\"\"choices_provider which returns CompletionItems\"\"\"
 
-            # CompletionItem's second argument is descriptive_data.
+            # CompletionItem's second argument is description.
             # Its item count should match that of descriptive_headers.
             return [
                 CompletionItem(1, ["My item", True, "02/02/2022"]),
@@ -194,14 +194,14 @@ def get_items(self) -> list[CompletionItems]:
 truncated with an ellipsis at the end. You can override this and other settings
 when you create the ``Column``.
 
-``descriptive_data`` items can include Rich objects, including styled Text and Tables.
+``description`` items can include Rich objects, including styled Text and Tables.
 
 To avoid printing a excessive information to the screen at once when a user
 presses tab, there is a maximum threshold for the number of CompletionItems
 that will be shown. Its value is defined in ``cmd2.Cmd.max_completion_items``.
 It defaults to 50, but can be changed. If the number of completion suggestions
 exceeds this number, they will be displayed in the typical columnized format
-and will not include the descriptive_data of the CompletionItems.
+and will not include the description of the CompletionItems.
 
 
 **Patched argparse functions**
@@ -384,22 +384,26 @@ def __new__(cls, value: object, *_args: Any, **_kwargs: Any) -> 'CompletionItem'
         """Responsible for creating and returning a new instance, called before __init__ when an object is instantiated."""
         return super().__new__(cls, value)
 
-    def __init__(self, value: object, descriptive_data: Sequence[Any], *args: Any) -> None:
+    def __init__(self, value: object, description: str | Sequence[Any], *args: Any) -> None:
         """CompletionItem Initializer.
 
         :param value: the value being tab completed
-        :param descriptive_data: a list of descriptive data to display in the columns that follow
-                                 the completion value. The number of items in this list must equal
+        :param description: a string or sequence of descriptive data to display in the columns that follow
+                                 the completion value. If a sequence, the number of items in this sequence must equal
                                  the number of descriptive headers defined for the argument.
         :param args: args for str __init__
         """
         super().__init__(*args)
 
+        # If description is a string, wrap it in a list
+        if isinstance(description, str):
+            description = [description]
+
         # Make sure all objects are renderable by a Rich table.
-        renderable_data = [obj if is_renderable(obj) else str(obj) for obj in descriptive_data]
+        renderable_data = [obj if is_renderable(obj) else str(obj) for obj in description]
 
         # Convert strings containing ANSI style sequences to Rich Text objects for correct display width.
-        self.descriptive_data = ru.prepare_objects_for_rendering(*renderable_data)
+        self.description = ru.prepare_objects_for_rendering(*renderable_data)
 
         # Save the original value to support CompletionItems as argparse choices.
         # cmd2 has patched argparse so input is compared to this value instead of the CompletionItem instance.

tests/test_cmd2.py

@@ -2306,7 +2306,7 @@ def test_get_alias_completion_items(base_app) -> None:
     for cur_res in results:
         assert cur_res in base_app.aliases
         # Strip trailing spaces from table output
-        assert cur_res.descriptive_data[0].rstrip() == base_app.aliases[cur_res]
+        assert cur_res.description[0].rstrip() == base_app.aliases[cur_res]
 
 
 def test_get_macro_completion_items(base_app) -> None:
@@ -2319,7 +2319,7 @@ def test_get_macro_completion_items(base_app) -> None:
     for cur_res in results:
         assert cur_res in base_app.macros
         # Strip trailing spaces from table output
-        assert cur_res.descriptive_data[0].rstrip() == base_app.macros[cur_res].value
+        assert cur_res.description[0].rstrip() == base_app.macros[cur_res].value
 
 
 def test_get_settable_completion_items(base_app) -> None:
@@ -2333,11 +2333,11 @@ def test_get_settable_completion_items(base_app) -> None:
         # These CompletionItem descriptions are a two column table (Settable Value and Settable Description)
         # First check if the description text starts with the value
         str_value = str(cur_settable.value)
-        assert cur_res.descriptive_data[0].startswith(str_value)
+        assert cur_res.description[0].startswith(str_value)
 
         # The second column is likely to have wrapped long text. So we will just examine the
         # first couple characters to look for the Settable's description.
-        assert cur_settable.description[0:10] in cur_res.descriptive_data[1]
+        assert cur_settable.description[0:10] in cur_res.description[1]
 
 
 def test_alias_no_subcommand(base_app) -> None: