Simple argparse example wanted: 1 argument, 3 results

python argparse
matt wilkie picture matt wilkie · Sep 15, 2011 · Viewed 304.2k times · Source

The documentation for the argparse python module, while excellent I'm sure, is too much for my tiny beginner brain to grasp right now. I don't need to do math on the command line or meddle with formatting lines on the screen or change option characters. All I want to do is "If arg is A, do this, if B do that, if none of the above show help and quit".

Answer

Diego Navarro picture Diego Navarro · Sep 15, 2011

Here's the way I do it with argparse (with multiple args):

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Description of your program')
parser.add_argument('-f','--foo', help='Description for foo argument', required=True)
parser.add_argument('-b','--bar', help='Description for bar argument', required=True)
args = vars(parser.parse_args())

args will be a dictionary containing the arguments:

if args['foo'] == 'Hello':
    # code here

if args['bar'] == 'World':
    # code here

In your case simply add only one argument.

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