OptParse is a module introduced in Python2.3 that makes it easy to write command line tools.
You give a description of the options that the program can receive, and OptParse will do reasonable stuff for you.
For example:
1 import optparse
2
3 if __name__=="__main__":
4 parser = optparse.OptionParser("usage: %prog [options] arg1 arg2")
5 parser.add_option("-H", "--host", dest="hostname",
6 default="127.0.0.1", type="string",
7 help="specify hostname to run on")
8 parser.add_option("-p", "--port", dest="portnum", default=80,
9 type="int", help="port number to run on")
10
11 (options, args) = parser.parse_args()
12 if len(args) != 2:
13 parser.error("incorrect number of arguments")
14 hostname = options.hostname
15 portnum = options.portnum
args contains your fixed arguments, options contains your values.
For example, options.portnum would contain the integer 80, in the example above.
References
[http://docs.python.org/lib/module-optparse.html Official Python optparse Documentation]
Complaints
- optparse does not support 'required' arguments. The documentation justifies this by saying 'options are optional'. But look at python and its use of keyword arguments. And look at optparse iself! It has the required option 'action'! optparse is a utility! Not a way to enforce a philosphy.