I'm doing a command line application to verify if a website is active, and i want to receive one argument, but the parser needs receive an argument and a valor for this argument, So my question is: How can i use just 1 argument ?
This is my code:
if __name__=="__main__":
import requests
import datetime
from time import sleep
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('u', help="Unique verification")
parser.add_argument('c', help="Continuos verification")
parser.add_argument('s', help="Check and save to file")
parser.add_argument('d', help="Documentation")
args = parser.parse_args()
main(parser.parse_args)
My function main receives a char, how can i use a char via command line?
You are currently creating mandatory positional arguments, so that a call like
python3 verify.py foo bar baz bye
would result in
args.u == 'foo'
args.c == 'bar'
args.s == 'baz'
args.d == 'bye'
You want to define four options, using the store_true action so that providing the option will set a flag from its default False value to True.
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-u', action='store_true', help="Unique verification")
parser.add_argument('-c', action='store_true', help="Continuos verification")
parser.add_argument('-s', action='store_true', help="Check and save to file")
parser.add_argument('-d', action='store_true', help="Documentation")
args = parser.parse_args()
Now a call like
python3 verify.py -u -s
would result in
args.u == True
args.c == False
args.s == True
args.d == False
If you want to further restrict the user to exactly one of the four options, use a mutual-exclusion group.
# Same as above, calling group.add_argument, not parser.add_argument
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument('-u', action='store_true', help="Unique verification")
group.add_argument('-c', action='store_true', help="Continuos verification")
group.add_argument('-s', action='store_true', help="Check and save to file")
group.add_argument('-d', action='store_true', help="Documentation")
args = parser.parse_args()
I'm writing a Python script to process a machine-readable file and output a human-readable report on the data contained within.
I would like to give the option of outputting the data to stdout (-s) (by default) or to a txt (-t) or csv (-c) file. I would like to have a switch for the default behaviour, as many commands do.
In terms of Usage:, I'd like to see something like script [-s | -c | -t] input file, and have -s be the default if no arguments are passed.
I currently have (for the relevant args, in brief):
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument('-s', '--stdout', action='store_true')
group.add_argument('-c', '--csv', action='store_true')
group.add_argument('-t', '--txt', action='store_true')
args = parser.parse_args()
if not any((args.stdout, args.csv, args.txt)):
args.stdout = True
So if none of -s, -t, or -c are set, stdout (-s) is forced to True, exactly as if -s had been passed.
Is there a better way to achieve this? Or would another approach entirely be generally considered 'better' for some reason?
Note: I'm using Python 3.5.1/2 and I'm not worried about compatibility with other versions, as there is no plan to share this script with others at this point. It's simply to make my life easier.
You could have each of your actions update the same variable, supplying stdout as the default value for that variable.
Consider this program:
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument(
'-s', '--stdout', action='store_const', dest='type', const='s', default='s')
group.add_argument(
'-c', '--csv', action='store_const', dest='type', const='c')
group.add_argument(
'-t', '--txt', action='store_const', dest='type', const='t')
args = parser.parse_args()
print args
Your code could look like:
if args.type == 's':
ofile = sys.stdout
elif args.type == 'c':
ofile = ...
...
First alternative:
Rather than arbitrarily choose one of the .add_argument()s to specify the default type, you can use parser.set_defaults() to specify the default type.
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument('-s', '--stdout', action='store_const', dest='type', const='s')
group.add_argument('-c', '--csv', action='store_const', dest='type', const='c')
group.add_argument('-t', '--txt', action='store_const', dest='type', const='t')
parser.set_defaults(type='s')
args = parser.parse_args()
print args
Second alternative:
Rather than specify the type as an enumerated value, you could store a callable into the type, and then invoke the callable:
import argparse
def do_stdout():
# do everything that is required to support stdout
print("stdout!")
return
def do_csv():
# do everything that is required to support CSV file
print("csv!")
return
def do_text():
# do everything that is required to support TXT file
print("text!")
return
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument('-s', '--stdout', action='store_const', dest='type', const=do_stdout)
group.add_argument('-c', '--csv', action='store_const', dest='type', const=do_csv)
group.add_argument('-t', '--txt', action='store_const', dest='type', const=do_text)
parser.set_defaults(type=do_stdout)
args = parser.parse_args()
print args
args.type()
You can "cheat" with sys.argv :
import sys
def main():
if len(sys.argv) == 2 and sys.argv[1] not in ['-s', '-c', '-t', '-h']:
filename = sys.argv[1]
print "mode : stdout", filename
else:
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument('-s', '--stdout')
group.add_argument('-c', '--csv')
group.add_argument('-t', '--txt')
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.stdout:
print "mode stdout :", args.stdout
if args.csv:
print "mode csv :", args.csv
if args.txt:
print "mode txt :", args.txt
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
I am implementing a command line program which has interface like this:
cmd [GLOBAL_OPTIONS] {command [COMMAND_OPTS]} [{command [COMMAND_OPTS]} ...]
I have gone through the argparse documentation. I can implement GLOBAL_OPTIONS as optional argument using add_argument in argparse. And the {command [COMMAND_OPTS]} using Sub-commands.
From the documentation it seems I can have only one sub-command. But as you can see I have to implement one or more sub-commands. What is the best way to parse such command line arguments useing argparse?
I came up with the same qustion, and it seems i have got a better answer.
The solution is we shall not simply nest subparser with another subparser, but we can add subparser following with a parser following another subparser.
Code tell you how:
parent_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)
parent_parser.add_argument('--user', '-u',
default=getpass.getuser(),
help='username')
parent_parser.add_argument('--debug', default=False, required=False,
action='store_true', dest="debug", help='debug flag')
main_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
service_subparsers = main_parser.add_subparsers(title="service",
dest="service_command")
service_parser = service_subparsers.add_parser("first", help="first",
parents=[parent_parser])
action_subparser = service_parser.add_subparsers(title="action",
dest="action_command")
action_parser = action_subparser.add_parser("second", help="second",
parents=[parent_parser])
args = main_parser.parse_args()
#mgilson has a nice answer to this question. But problem with splitting sys.argv myself is that i lose all the nice help message Argparse generates for the user. So i ended up doing this:
import argparse
## This function takes the 'extra' attribute from global namespace and re-parses it to create separate namespaces for all other chained commands.
def parse_extra (parser, namespace):
namespaces = []
extra = namespace.extra
while extra:
n = parser.parse_args(extra)
extra = n.extra
namespaces.append(n)
return namespaces
argparser=argparse.ArgumentParser()
subparsers = argparser.add_subparsers(help='sub-command help', dest='subparser_name')
parser_a = subparsers.add_parser('command_a', help = "command_a help")
## Setup options for parser_a
## Add nargs="*" for zero or more other commands
argparser.add_argument('extra', nargs = "*", help = 'Other commands')
## Do similar stuff for other sub-parsers
Now after first parse all chained commands are stored in extra. I reparse it while it is not empty to get all the chained commands and create separate namespaces for them. And i get nicer usage string that argparse generates.
parse_known_args returns a Namespace and a list of unknown strings. This is similar to the extra in the checked answer.
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('--foo')
sub = parser.add_subparsers()
for i in range(1,4):
sp = sub.add_parser('cmd%i'%i)
sp.add_argument('--foo%i'%i) # optionals have to be distinct
rest = '--foo 0 cmd2 --foo2 2 cmd3 --foo3 3 cmd1 --foo1 1'.split() # or sys.argv
args = argparse.Namespace()
while rest:
args,rest = parser.parse_known_args(rest,namespace=args)
print args, rest
produces:
Namespace(foo='0', foo2='2') ['cmd3', '--foo3', '3', 'cmd1', '--foo1', '1']
Namespace(foo='0', foo2='2', foo3='3') ['cmd1', '--foo1', '1']
Namespace(foo='0', foo1='1', foo2='2', foo3='3') []
An alternative loop would give each subparser its own namespace. This allows overlap in positionals names.
argslist = []
while rest:
args,rest = parser.parse_known_args(rest)
argslist.append(args)
The solution provide by #Vikas fails for subcommand-specific optional arguments, but the approach is valid. Here is an improved version:
import argparse
# create the top-level parser
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
parser.add_argument('--foo', action='store_true', help='foo help')
subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(help='sub-command help', dest='subparser_name')
# create the parser for the "command_a" command
parser_a = subparsers.add_parser('command_a', help='command_a help')
parser_a.add_argument('bar', type=int, help='bar help')
# create the parser for the "command_b" command
parser_b = subparsers.add_parser('command_b', help='command_b help')
parser_b.add_argument('--baz', choices='XYZ', help='baz help')
# parse some argument lists
argv = ['--foo', 'command_a', '12', 'command_b', '--baz', 'Z']
while argv:
print(argv)
options, argv = parser.parse_known_args(argv)
print(options)
if not options.subparser_name:
break
This uses parse_known_args instead of parse_args. parse_args aborts as soon as a argument unknown to the current subparser is encountered, parse_known_args returns them as a second value in the returned tuple. In this approach, the remaining arguments are fed again to the parser. So for each command, a new Namespace is created.
Note that in this basic example, all global options are added to the first options Namespace only, not to the subsequent Namespaces.
This approach works fine for most situations, but has three important limitations:
It is not possible to use the same optional argument for different subcommands, like myprog.py command_a --foo=bar command_b --foo=bar.
It is not possible to use any variable length positional arguments with subcommands (nargs='?' or nargs='+' or nargs='*').
Any known argument is parsed, without 'breaking' at the new command. E.g. in PROG --foo command_b command_a --baz Z 12 with the above code, --baz Z will be consumed by command_b, not by command_a.
These limitations are a direct limitation of argparse. Here is a simple example that shows the limitations of argparse -even when using a single subcommand-:
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('spam', nargs='?')
subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(help='sub-command help', dest='subparser_name')
# create the parser for the "command_a" command
parser_a = subparsers.add_parser('command_a', help='command_a help')
parser_a.add_argument('bar', type=int, help='bar help')
# create the parser for the "command_b" command
parser_b = subparsers.add_parser('command_b', help='command_b help')
options = parser.parse_args('command_a 42'.split())
print(options)
This will raise the error: argument subparser_name: invalid choice: '42' (choose from 'command_a', 'command_b').
The cause is that the internal method argparse.ArgParser._parse_known_args() it is too greedy and assumes that command_a is the value of the optional spam argument. In particular, when 'splitting' up optional and positional arguments, _parse_known_args() does not look at the names of the arugments (like command_a or command_b), but merely where they occur in the argument list. It also assumes that any subcommand will consume all remaining arguments.
This limitation of argparse also prevents a proper implementation of multi-command subparsers. This unfortunately means that a proper implementation requires a full rewrite of the argparse.ArgParser._parse_known_args() method, which is 200+ lines of code.
Given these limitation, it may be an options to simply revert to a single multiple-choice argument instead of subcommands:
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('--bar', type=int, help='bar help')
parser.add_argument('commands', nargs='*', metavar='COMMAND',
choices=['command_a', 'command_b'])
options = parser.parse_args('--bar 2 command_a command_b'.split())
print(options)
#options = parser.parse_args(['--help'])
It is even possible to list the different commands in the usage information, see my answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/49999185/428542
You can always split up the command-line yourself (split sys.argv on your command names), and then only pass the portion corresponding to the particular command to parse_args -- You can even use the same Namespace using the namespace keyword if you want.
Grouping the commandline is easy with itertools.groupby:
import sys
import itertools
import argparse
mycommands=['cmd1','cmd2','cmd3']
def groupargs(arg,currentarg=[None]):
if(arg in mycommands):currentarg[0]=arg
return currentarg[0]
commandlines=[list(args) for cmd,args in intertools.groupby(sys.argv,groupargs)]
#setup parser here...
parser=argparse.ArgumentParser()
#...
namespace=argparse.Namespace()
for cmdline in commandlines:
parser.parse_args(cmdline,namespace=namespace)
#Now do something with namespace...
untested
Improving on the answer by #mgilson, I wrote a small parsing method which splits argv into parts and puts values of arguments of commands into hierarchy of namespaces:
import sys
import argparse
def parse_args(parser, commands):
# Divide argv by commands
split_argv = [[]]
for c in sys.argv[1:]:
if c in commands.choices:
split_argv.append([c])
else:
split_argv[-1].append(c)
# Initialize namespace
args = argparse.Namespace()
for c in commands.choices:
setattr(args, c, None)
# Parse each command
parser.parse_args(split_argv[0], namespace=args) # Without command
for argv in split_argv[1:]: # Commands
n = argparse.Namespace()
setattr(args, argv[0], n)
parser.parse_args(argv, namespace=n)
return args
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
commands = parser.add_subparsers(title='sub-commands')
cmd1_parser = commands.add_parser('cmd1')
cmd1_parser.add_argument('--foo')
cmd2_parser = commands.add_parser('cmd2')
cmd2_parser.add_argument('--foo')
cmd2_parser = commands.add_parser('cmd3')
cmd2_parser.add_argument('--foo')
args = parse_args(parser, commands)
print(args)
It behaves properly, providing nice argparse help:
For ./test.py --help:
usage: test.py [-h] {cmd1,cmd2,cmd3} ...
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
sub-commands:
{cmd1,cmd2,cmd3}
For ./test.py cmd1 --help:
usage: test.py cmd1 [-h] [--foo FOO]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--foo FOO
And creates a hierarchy of namespaces containing the argument values:
./test.py cmd1 --foo 3 cmd3 --foo 4
Namespace(cmd1=Namespace(foo='3'), cmd2=None, cmd3=Namespace(foo='4'))
You could try arghandler. This is an extension to argparse with explicit support for subcommands.
Built a full Python 2/3 example with subparsers, parse_known_args and parse_args (running on IDEone):
from __future__ import print_function
from argparse import ArgumentParser
from random import randint
def main():
parser = get_parser()
input_sum_cmd = ['sum_cmd', '--sum']
input_min_cmd = ['min_cmd', '--min']
args, rest = parser.parse_known_args(
# `sum`
input_sum_cmd +
['-a', str(randint(21, 30)),
'-b', str(randint(51, 80))] +
# `min`
input_min_cmd +
['-y', str(float(randint(64, 79))),
'-z', str(float(randint(91, 120)) + .5)]
)
print('args:\t ', args,
'\nrest:\t ', rest, '\n', sep='')
sum_cmd_result = args.sm((args.a, args.b))
print(
'a:\t\t {:02d}\n'.format(args.a),
'b:\t\t {:02d}\n'.format(args.b),
'sum_cmd: {:02d}\n'.format(sum_cmd_result), sep='')
assert rest[0] == 'min_cmd'
args = parser.parse_args(rest)
min_cmd_result = args.mn((args.y, args.z))
print(
'y:\t\t {:05.2f}\n'.format(args.y),
'z:\t\t {:05.2f}\n'.format(args.z),
'min_cmd: {:05.2f}'.format(min_cmd_result), sep='')
def get_parser():
# create the top-level parser
parser = ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(help='sub-command help')
# create the parser for the "sum" command
parser_a = subparsers.add_parser('sum_cmd', help='sum some integers')
parser_a.add_argument('-a', type=int,
help='an integer for the accumulator')
parser_a.add_argument('-b', type=int,
help='an integer for the accumulator')
parser_a.add_argument('--sum', dest='sm', action='store_const',
const=sum, default=max,
help='sum the integers (default: find the max)')
# create the parser for the "min" command
parser_b = subparsers.add_parser('min_cmd', help='min some integers')
parser_b.add_argument('-y', type=float,
help='an float for the accumulator')
parser_b.add_argument('-z', type=float,
help='an float for the accumulator')
parser_b.add_argument('--min', dest='mn', action='store_const',
const=min, default=0,
help='smallest integer (default: 0)')
return parser
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
I had more or less the same requirements: Being able to set global arguments and being able to chain commands and execute them in order of command line.
I ended up with the following code. I did use some parts of the code from this and other threads.
# argtest.py
import sys
import argparse
def init_args():
def parse_args_into_namespaces(parser, commands):
'''
Split all command arguments (without prefix, like --) in
own namespaces. Each command accepts extra options for
configuration.
Example: `add 2 mul 5 --repeat 3` could be used to a sequencial
addition of 2, then multiply with 5 repeated 3 times.
'''
class OrderNamespace(argparse.Namespace):
'''
Add `command_order` attribute - a list of command
in order on the command line. This allows sequencial
processing of arguments.
'''
globals = None
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
self.command_order = []
super(OrderNamespace, self).__init__(**kwargs)
def __setattr__(self, attr, value):
attr = attr.replace('-', '_')
if value and attr not in self.command_order:
self.command_order.append(attr)
super(OrderNamespace, self).__setattr__(attr, value)
# Divide argv by commands
split_argv = [[]]
for c in sys.argv[1:]:
if c in commands.choices:
split_argv.append([c])
else:
split_argv[-1].append(c)
# Globals arguments without commands
args = OrderNamespace()
cmd, args_raw = 'globals', split_argv.pop(0)
args_parsed = parser.parse_args(args_raw, namespace=OrderNamespace())
setattr(args, cmd, args_parsed)
# Split all commands to separate namespace
pos = 0
while len(split_argv):
pos += 1
cmd, *args_raw = split_argv.pop(0)
assert cmd[0].isalpha(), 'Command must start with a letter.'
args_parsed = commands.choices[cmd].parse_args(args_raw, namespace=OrderNamespace())
setattr(args, f'{cmd}~{pos}', args_parsed)
return args
#
# Supported commands and options
#
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter)
parser.add_argument('--print', action='store_true')
commands = parser.add_subparsers(title='Operation chain')
cmd1_parser = commands.add_parser('add', formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter)
cmd1_parser.add_argument('add', help='Add this number.', type=float)
cmd1_parser.add_argument('-r', '--repeat', help='Repeat this operation N times.',
default=1, type=int)
cmd2_parser = commands.add_parser('mult', formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter)
cmd2_parser.add_argument('mult', help='Multiply with this number.', type=float)
cmd2_parser.add_argument('-r', '--repeat', help='Repeat this operation N times.',
default=1, type=int)
args = parse_args_into_namespaces(parser, commands)
return args
#
# DEMO
#
args = init_args()
# print('Parsed arguments:')
# for cmd in args.command_order:
# namespace = getattr(args, cmd)
# for option_name in namespace.command_order:
# option_value = getattr(namespace, option_name)
# print((cmd, option_name, option_value))
print('Execution:')
result = 0
for cmd in args.command_order:
namespace = getattr(args, cmd)
cmd_name, cmd_position = cmd.split('~') if cmd.find('~') > -1 else (cmd, 0)
if cmd_name == 'globals':
pass
elif cmd_name == 'add':
for r in range(namespace.repeat):
if args.globals.print:
print(f'+ {namespace.add}')
result = result + namespace.add
elif cmd_name == 'mult':
for r in range(namespace.repeat):
if args.globals.print:
print(f'* {namespace.mult}')
result = result * namespace.mult
else:
raise NotImplementedError(f'Namespace `{cmd}` is not implemented.')
print(10*'-')
print(result)
Below an example:
$ python argstest.py --print add 1 -r 2 mult 5 add 3 mult -r 5 5
Execution:
+ 1.0
+ 1.0
* 5.0
+ 3.0
* 5.0
* 5.0
* 5.0
* 5.0
* 5.0
----------
40625.0
Another package which supports parallel parsers is "declarative_parser".
import argparse
from declarative_parser import Parser, Argument
supported_formats = ['png', 'jpeg', 'gif']
class InputParser(Parser):
path = Argument(type=argparse.FileType('rb'), optional=False)
format = Argument(default='png', choices=supported_formats)
class OutputParser(Parser):
format = Argument(default='jpeg', choices=supported_formats)
class ImageConverter(Parser):
description = 'This app converts images'
verbose = Argument(action='store_true')
input = InputParser()
output = OutputParser()
parser = ImageConverter()
commands = '--verbose input image.jpeg --format jpeg output --format gif'.split()
namespace = parser.parse_args(commands)
and namespace becomes:
Namespace(
input=Namespace(format='jpeg', path=<_io.BufferedReader name='image.jpeg'>),
output=Namespace(format='gif'),
verbose=True
)
Disclaimer: I am the author. Requires Python 3.6. To install use:
pip3 install declarative_parser
Here is the documentation and here is the repo on GitHub.
In order to parse the sub commands, I used the following (referred from argparse.py code). It parses the sub parser arguments and retains the help for both. Nothing additional passed there.
args, _ = parser.parse_known_args()
you can use the package optparse
import optparse
parser = optparse.OptionParser()
parser.add_option("-f", dest="filename", help="corpus filename")
parser.add_option("--alpha", dest="alpha", type="float", help="parameter alpha", default=0.5)
(options, args) = parser.parse_args()
fname = options.filename
alpha = options.alpha
Here is an example of how I would like to call my script:
python script.py -f file1.txt "string1" "string2" -f file2.txt "string3" "string4"
Every file that goes as input will have 2 strings associated with that file. There can be any number of files.
To simplify, I am trying to get a print like this:
('file1.txt', 'string1', 'string2')
('file2.txt', 'string3', 'string4')
Here is what I have so far:
import sys, os, traceback, optparse
import time
import re
#from pexpect import run, spawn
def main ():
global options, args
print options.filename
#for filename in options.filename:
# print filename
#f = file(filename,'r')
#for line in f:
# print line,
#f.close()
if __name__ == '__main__':
try:
start_time = time.time()
parser = optparse.OptionParser(formatter=optparse.TitledHelpFormatter(), usage=globals()['__doc__'], version='$Id$')
parser.add_option ('-f', '--file', dest='filename', help='write report to FILE', metavar='FILE', nargs=3)
parser.add_option ('-v', '--verbose', action='store_true', default=False, help='verbose output')
(options, args) = parser.parse_args()
#if len(args) < 1:
# parser.error ('missing argument')
if options.verbose: print time.asctime()
main()
if options.verbose: print time.asctime()
if options.verbose: print 'TOTAL TIME IN MINUTES:',
if options.verbose: print (time.time() - start_time) / 60.0
sys.exit(0)
except KeyboardInterrupt, e: # Ctrl-C
raise e
except SystemExit, e: # sys.exit()
raise e
except Exception, e:
print 'ERROR, UNEXPECTED EXCEPTION'
print str(e)
traceback.print_exc()
os._exit(1)
With the above script, I get only the second file and related strings:
('file2.txt', 'string3', 'string4')
I think you want to use the action=append argument of the add_argument method
import argparse
parser= argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument ('-f', '--file', nargs=3, action='append')
files = parser.parse_args('-f file1 string1 string2 -f file2 string3 string4 -f file3 string5 string6'.split()).file
for f in files:
print tuple(f)
gives you:
('file1', 'string1', 'string2')
('file2', 'string3', 'string4')
('file3', 'string5', 'string6')
Testing on cli:
with:
import argparse
parser= argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='Test', usage='%(prog)s -f Filename Option1 Option2 ')
parser.add_argument ('-f', '--file', nargs=3, action='append')
files = parser.parse_args().file
for f in files:
print tuple(f)
results:
python test.py -f file1 "foo bar" "baz" -f file2 foo bar
('file1', 'foo bar', 'baz')
('file2', 'foo', 'bar')
python test.py -f file1 "foo bar" "string2" -f file2 foo bar -f file3 "foo" "bar"
('file1', 'foo bar', 'string2')
('file2', 'foo', 'bar')
('file3', 'foo', 'bar')
python test.py -f file1 "foo bar"
usage: Test -f Filename Option1 Option2
Test: error: argument -f/--file: expected 3 argument(s)
argparse supports the notion of accumulators, which allow you to specify the same option more than once, which is probably more like what you want than anything optparse supports (your particular problem is that optparse doesn't know what to do with an argument specified multiple times, so it's "last one wins" at the command line). argparse is included in Python 2.7 and 3.2, but you should be able to download it for anything 2.6.x or later.
You weren't very clear on your constraints, but this will work for any number of -fs and other flags
import getopt
import sys
args = sys.argv[1:]
tuples = []
while args:
try:
opts, args = getopt.getopt(args, "f:v", ["file", "verbose"])
except getopt.GetoptError, err:
print str(err)
sys.exit(-1)
for o, a in opts:
if o in ("-f", "--file"):
tuples.append((a, args.pop(0), args.pop(0)))
if o in ("-v", "--verbose"):
print "yep, verbose"
print tuples
I would approach this similarly to the previous answer with a slight tweak:
import getopt
import sys
args = sys.argv[1:]
tuples = []
while args:
try:
(opts, args) = getopt.getopt(args, "f:v", ["file=", "verbose"])
except getopt.GetoptError, err:
print str(err)
sys.exit(2)
Now you can either require input in the following way:
-f file1.txt,string1,string2
And parse it in the following way:
for opt, arg in opts:
if opt in ("-f", "--file"):
tuples.append(tuple(arg.split(",")))
if opt in ("-v", "--verbose"):
print "yep, verbose"
print tuples
Or design the input as one string:
-f "file1.txt string1 string2"
and split on whatever strikes your fancy.
If you are using optparse because you want to remain compatible with python 2.6, the action='append' solution works, too:
import optparse
parser = optparse.OptionParser()
parser.add_option('-f', '--file', dest='filename', nargs=3, action='append')
Demonstration
>>> (opts, args) = parser.parse_args("-f file1.txt string1 string2 -f file2.txt string3 string4".split())
>>> for fn_tuple in opts.filename:
... print fn_tuple
('file1.txt', 'string1', 'string2')
('file2.txt', 'string3', 'string4')