The argparse
module provides an interface to write command-line programs in Python. It is the recommended command-line parsing module available in the Python standard library. An example of using argparse
is shown below.
import argparse
# arguments for the command-line parser
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('n', type=int, help='number of items to print')
parser.add_argument('-d', '--done', action='store_true', help='print when done')
args = parser.parse_args()
# get integer value
n = args.n
for n in range(n):
print('Item ', n)
# get boolean value
if args.done:
print('Program is done.')
The command-line program shown above is in a file named argparse_cli.py
. Examples of running the program from the terminal are shown below:
$ python argparse_intro.py 8
Item 0
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
Item 7
$ python argparse_intro.py 8 --done
Item 0
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
Item 7
Program is done.
$ python argparse_intro.py -h
usage: argparse_intro.py [-h] [-d] n
positional arguments:
n number of items to print
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-d, --done print when done
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