lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm | 3 +--

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
index ffbc25039cd0566e8ab7d60246495069c4af3494..b0a8358a0c562c44714eaf6478243d8626b61f66 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
@@ -737,8 +737,7 @@ 	if (($argv[-1] // $cur // '') =~ /\A--?([\w\-]+)\z/) {
 		my $opt = quotemeta $1;
 		puts $self, map {
 			my $v = $OPTDESC{$_};
-			$v = $v->[0] if ref($v);
-			my @v = split(/\|/, $v);
+			my @v = ref($v) ? split(/\|/, $v->[0]) : ();
 			# get rid of ALL CAPS placeholder (e.g "OUT")
 			# (TODO: completion for external paths)
 			shift(@v) if uc($v[0]) eq $v[0];