Getting command line arguments as tuples in python

Question

Here is an example of how I would like to call my script:

python script.py -f file1.txt "string1" "string2" -f file2.txt "string3" "string4"

Every file that goes as input will have 2 strings associated with that file. There can be any number of files.

To simplify, I am trying to get a print like this:

('file1.txt', 'string1', 'string2')
('file2.txt', 'string3', 'string4')

Here is what I have so far:

import sys, os, traceback, optparse
import time
import re
#from pexpect import run, spawn

def main ():
    global options, args

    print options.filename

    #for filename in options.filename:
    #  print filename
      #f = file(filename,'r')
      #for line in f:
      #  print line,
      #f.close()



if __name__ == '__main__':
    try:
        start_time = time.time()
        parser = optparse.OptionParser(formatter=optparse.TitledHelpFormatter(), usage=globals()['__doc__'], version='$Id$')
        parser.add_option ('-f', '--file', dest='filename', help='write report to FILE', metavar='FILE', nargs=3)
        parser.add_option ('-v', '--verbose', action='store_true', default=False, help='verbose output')
        (options, args) = parser.parse_args()
        #if len(args) < 1:
        #    parser.error ('missing argument')
        if options.verbose: print time.asctime()
        main()
        if options.verbose: print time.asctime()
        if options.verbose: print 'TOTAL TIME IN MINUTES:',
        if options.verbose: print (time.time() - start_time) / 60.0
        sys.exit(0)
    except KeyboardInterrupt, e: # Ctrl-C
        raise e
    except SystemExit, e: # sys.exit()
        raise e
    except Exception, e:
        print 'ERROR, UNEXPECTED EXCEPTION'
        print str(e)
        traceback.print_exc()
        os._exit(1)

With the above script, I get only the second file and related strings:

('file2.txt', 'string3', 'string4')

Answer 1

I think you want to use the action=append argument of the add_argument method

import argparse

parser= argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument ('-f', '--file', nargs=3, action='append')

files = parser.parse_args('-f file1 string1 string2 -f file2 string3 string4 -f file3 string5 string6'.split()).file

for f in files:
    print tuple(f)

gives you:

('file1', 'string1', 'string2')
('file2', 'string3', 'string4')
('file3', 'string5', 'string6')

Testing on cli:

with:

import argparse

parser= argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='Test', usage='%(prog)s -f Filename Option1 Option2 ')
parser.add_argument ('-f', '--file', nargs=3, action='append')

files = parser.parse_args().file

for f in files:
    print tuple(f)

results:

python test.py -f file1 "foo bar" "baz" -f file2 foo bar
('file1', 'foo bar', 'baz')
('file2', 'foo', 'bar')

python test.py -f file1 "foo bar" "string2" -f file2 foo bar -f file3 "foo" "bar"
('file1', 'foo bar', 'string2')
('file2', 'foo', 'bar')
('file3', 'foo', 'bar')

python test.py -f file1 "foo bar"
usage: Test -f Filename Option1 Option2
Test: error: argument -f/--file: expected 3 argument(s)