pargs

Parse command line arguments into a list of args and a dict of kwargs.

Installation

pip install pargs

Usage

By default, pargs.parse_args() uses sys.argv as command line arguments. It can be used in the following way.

from pargs import parse_args

args, kwargs = parse_args()

The arguments to be parsed can also be specified manually:

from pargs import parse_args

args, kwargs = parse_args(argv=['pargs.py', '--name=Pargs'])

Specification

parse_args parses arguments in the following way, assuming the following command line arguments (sys.argv): ['/pargs/pargs.py', 'command', 'positional', '--flag', '--optional=value', 'test', '--output-file', 'filename', '-flg', 'name', 'name2']

By calling args, kwargs = parse_args(), this would return the following list and dict:

args = ['/pargs/pargs.py', 'command', 'positional']
kwargs = {
        'flag': True,
        'optional': ['value', 'test'],
        'output_file': ['filename'],
        'f': True,
        'l': True,
        'g': ['name', 'name2'],
    }

Basic behaviour

All arguments before the first option (starting with a hyphen) are considered positional arguments (args)
All other arguments are considered optional keyword arguments (kwargs)
Optional arguments without leading hyphens are considered as values to preceding keyword arguments and saved as list
Flags are recorded with the value True in the dict
Up to 2 leading hyphens are stripped from options, all other hyphens are converted into underscores (---test-this- would become _test_this_)