From: Savannah Ostrowski <savannah@python.org>
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2025 21:02:12 +0000 (-0800)
Subject: GH-139862: Fix direct instantiation of `HelpFormatter` (#142384)
X-Git-Tag: v3.15.0a3~169
X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=dc9f2385ed528caf4ab02965b6d3e16b8a72db25;p=thirdparty%2FPython%2Fcpython.git

GH-139862: Fix direct instantiation of `HelpFormatter` (#142384)
---

diff --git a/Lib/argparse.py b/Lib/argparse.py
index 6ed7386d0dd4..398825508f59 100644
--- a/Lib/argparse.py
+++ b/Lib/argparse.py
@@ -189,6 +189,8 @@ class HelpFormatter(object):
         self._whitespace_matcher = _re.compile(r'\s+', _re.ASCII)
         self._long_break_matcher = _re.compile(r'\n\n\n+')
 
+        self._set_color(False)
+
     def _set_color(self, color):
         from _colorize import can_colorize, decolor, get_theme
 
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_argparse.py b/Lib/test/test_argparse.py
index fe5232e9f3b5..7c5eed21219d 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_argparse.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_argparse.py
@@ -5694,6 +5694,11 @@ class TestHelpCustomHelpFormatter(TestCase):
                 a-very-long-command  command that does something
         '''))
 
+    def test_direct_formatter_instantiation(self):
+        formatter = argparse.HelpFormatter(prog="program")
+        formatter.add_usage(usage=None, actions=[], groups=[])
+        help_text = formatter.format_help()
+        self.assertEqual(help_text, "usage: program\n")
 
 # =====================================
 # Optional/Positional constructor tests