pythonparsingcommand-line-argumentsargparsesubcommand

Python: argument parser that handles global options to sub-commands properly

argparse fails at dealing with sub-commands receiving global options:

import argparse
p = argparse.ArgumentParser()
p.add_argument('--arg', action='store_true')
s = p.add_subparsers()
s.add_parser('test')

will have p.parse_args('--arg test'.split()) work,
but fails on p.parse_args('test --arg'.split()).

Anyone aware of a python argument parser that handles global options to sub-commands properly?

Solution

  • Give docopt a try:

    >>> from docopt import docopt

>>> usage = """
... usage: prog.py command [--test]
...        prog.py another [--test]
... 
... --test  Perform the test."""

>>> docopt(usage, argv='command --test')
{'--test': True,
 'another': False,
 'command': True}

>>> docopt(usage, argv='--test command')
{'--test': True,
 'another': False,
 'command': True}