[FLINK-1436] Command-line interface verbose option & error reporting

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 0.9
• Component/s: Deployment / Scripts
• Labels: starter usability
• Assignee: Maximilian Michels
• Reporter: Maximilian Michels
• Created: 22/Jan/15 13:44
• Updated: 13/Apr/21 20:40
• Resolved: 12/Feb/15 20:14

Description

Let me run just a basic Flink job and add the verbose flag. It's a general option, so let me add it as a first parameter:

> ./flink -v run ../examples/flink-java-examples-0.8.0-WordCount.jar hdfs:///input hdfs:///output9
Invalid action!
./flink <ACTION> [GENERAL_OPTIONS] [ARGUMENTS]
general options:
h,-help Show the help for the CLI Frontend.
v,-verbose Print more detailed error messages.

Action "run" compiles and runs a program.

Syntax: run [OPTIONS] <jar-file> <arguments>
"run" action arguments:
c,-class <classname> Class with the program entry point ("main"
method or "getPlan()" method. Only needed
if the JAR file does not specify the class
in its manifest.
m,-jobmanager <host:port> Address of the JobManager (master) to
which to connect. Use this flag to connect
to a different JobManager than the one
specified in the configuration.
p,-parallelism <parallelism> The parallelism with which to run the
program. Optional flag to override the
default value specified in the
configuration.

Action "info" displays information about a program.
"info" action arguments:
c,-class <classname> Class with the program entry point ("main"
method or "getPlan()" method. Only needed
if the JAR file does not specify the class
in its manifest.
e,-executionplan Show optimized execution plan of the
program (JSON)
m,-jobmanager <host:port> Address of the JobManager (master) to
which to connect. Use this flag to connect
to a different JobManager than the one
specified in the configuration.
p,-parallelism <parallelism> The parallelism with which to run the
program. Optional flag to override the
default value specified in the
configuration.

Action "list" lists running and finished programs.
"list" action arguments:
m,-jobmanager <host:port> Address of the JobManager (master) to which
to connect. Use this flag to connect to a
different JobManager than the one specified
in the configuration.
r,-running Show running programs and their JobIDs
s,-scheduled Show scheduled prorgrams and their JobIDs

Action "cancel" cancels a running program.
"cancel" action arguments:
i,-jobid <jobID> JobID of program to cancel
m,-jobmanager <host:port> Address of the JobManager (master) to which
to connect. Use this flag to connect to a
different JobManager than the one specified
in the configuration.

What just happened? This results in a lot of output which is usually generated if you use the --help option on command-line tools. If your terminal window is large enough, then you will see a tiny message:

"Please specify an action". I did specify an action. Strange. If you read the help messages carefully you see, that "general options" belong to the action.

> ./flink run -v ../examples/flink-java-examples-0.8.0-WordCount.jar hdfs:///input hdfs:///output9

For the sake of mitigating user frustration, let us also accept -v as the first argument. It may seem trivial for the day-to-day Flink user but makes a difference for a novice.

Issue Links

• incorporates: FLINK-1424 bin/flink run does not recognize -c parameter anymore