The argparse module makes it easy to write user-friendly command-line interfaces. The program defines what arguments it requires, and argparse will figure out how to parse those out of sys.argv.
The argparse module also automatically generates help and usage messages and issues errors when users give the program invalid arguments.
argparse is the “recommended command-line parsing module in the Python standard library.” It’s what you use to get command line arguments into your program. As of Python >= 2.7 and >= 3.2, the argparse module is maintained within the Python standard library.
The argparse module was added to Python 2.7 as a replacement for optparse.
Key Features
- Handles both optional and positional arguments.
- Produces highly informative usage messages.
- Supports parsers that dispatch to sub-parsers.
Website: docs.python.org
Support:
Developer: Steven Bethard, Thomas Waldmann
License: Python Software Foundation License
argparse is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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