chbrown / argv

Simpler command line argument parsing in Python

Simpler command line argument parsing

In the spirit of optimist: less magic, more flexibility.

pi install argv

Quickstart

Manual specification of arguments, no configuration:

import argv
argv.parse(['-i', 'input.txt', '-z', '--verbose'])
>>> {'i': 'input.txt', 'verbose': True, 'z': True}

Uses sys.argv (without the executable name) if no argument list is given:

import sys
sys.argv
>>> ['/usr/local/bin/bottler', 'exec', 'prog.py', '--debug']
argv.parse()
>>> {'_': ['exec', 'prog.py'], 'debug': True}

Configuration:

parser = argv.Parser()
parser.add('action')
parser.add('target')
parser.add('-d', '--debug')
parser.parse(['exec', 'prog.py', '--debug'])
>>> {'action': 'exec', 'd': True, 'debug': True, 'target': 'prog.py'}

Testing

Continuous integration:

Or run tests locally:

python setup.py test

Development

Terminology:

• flag: a command line argument marked with a double dash or each component of a group denoted by a single dash. E.g.,
  • --verbose --logfile logs/app.txt has two flags: verbose and logfile.
  • -czf archive.tgz app/ has three flags: c, z, and f.
• token: a white-space (or =) separated command line item. E.g.,
  • --input=prog.py --logfile logs/app.txt has four tokens: --input, prog.py, --logfile, and logs/app.txt

Related libraries

• https://github.com/docopt/docopt
• http://docs.python.org/2/library/argparse.html
• http://docs.python.org/2/library/optparse.html (Deprecated)
• http://tclap.sourceforge.net/manual.html

TODO: write about differences between this library (argv) and these libraries, relative merits of each, opposing philosophies, etc.

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Christopher Brown. MIT Licensed.