Argparse Tutorial

Release 2.7.14

Guido van Rossum

and the Python development team

November 24, 2017

Python Software Foundation

Email: [email protected]

Contents

1 Concepts 2

2 The basics 2

3 Introducing Positional arguments 3

4 Introducing Optional arguments 5

4.1 Short options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

5 Combining Positional and Optional arguments 6

6 Getting a little more advanced 10

6.1 Conflicting options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

7 Conclusion 13

author Tshepang Lekhonkhobe

This tutorial is intended to be a gentle introduction to argparse, the recommended command-line parsing
module in the Python standard library. This was written for argparse in Python 3. A few details are different
in 2.x, especially some exception messages, which were improved in 3.x.

Note: There are two other modules that fulfill the same task, namely getopt (an equivalent for getopt() from
the C language) and the deprecated optparse. Note also that argparse is based on optparse, and therefore
very similar in terms of usage.
1 Concepts

Lets show the sort of functionality that we are going to explore in this introductory tutorial by making use
of the ls command:

$ ls
cpython devguide prog.py pypy rm-unused-function.patch
$ ls pypy
ctypes_configure demo dotviewer include lib_pypy lib-python ...
$ ls -l
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 19 wena wena 4096 Feb 18 18:51 cpython
drwxr-xr-x 4 wena wena 4096 Feb 8 12:04 devguide
-rwxr-xr-x 1 wena wena 535 Feb 19 00:05 prog.py
drwxr-xr-x 14 wena wena 4096 Feb 7 00:59 pypy
-rw-r--r-- 1 wena wena 741 Feb 18 01:01 rm-unused-function.patch
$ ls --help
Usage: ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default).
Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.
...

A few concepts we can learn from the four commands:

The ls command is useful when run without any options at all. It defaults to displaying the contents
of the current directory.

If we want beyond what it provides by default, we tell it a bit more. In this case, we want it to display
a different directory, pypy. What we did is specify what is known as a positional argument. Its named
so because the program should know what to do with the value, solely based on where it appears on
the command line. This concept is more relevant to a command like cp, whose most basic usage is cp
SRC DEST. The first position is what you want copied, and the second position is where you want it
copied to.

Now, say we want to change behaviour of the program. In our example, we display more info for each
file instead of just showing the file names. The -l in that case is known as an optional argument.

Thats a snippet of the help text. Its very useful in that you can come across a program you have
never used before, and can figure out how it works simply by reading its help text.

2 The basics

Let us start with a very simple example which does (almost) nothing:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.parse_args()

Following is a result of running the code:

$ python prog.py
$ python prog.py --help
usage: prog.py [-h]

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
$ python prog.py --verbose
usage: prog.py [-h]
prog.py: error: unrecognized arguments: --verbose
$ python prog.py foo
usage: prog.py [-h]
prog.py: error: unrecognized arguments: foo

Here is what is happening:

Running the script without any options results in nothing displayed to stdout. Not so useful.

The second one starts to display the usefulness of the argparse module. We have done almost nothing,
but already we get a nice help message.

The --help option, which can also be shortened to -h, is the only option we get for free (i.e. no need
to specify it). Specifying anything else results in an error. But even then, we do get a useful usage
message, also for free.

3 Introducing Positional arguments

An example:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("echo")
args = parser.parse_args()
print args.echo

And running the code:

$ python prog.py
usage: prog.py [-h] echo
prog.py: error: the following arguments are required: echo
$ python prog.py --help
usage: prog.py [-h] echo

positional arguments:
echo

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
$ python prog.py foo
foo

Here is whats happening:

Weve added the add_argument() method, which is what we use to specify which command-line options
the program is willing to accept. In this case, Ive named it echo so that its in line with its function.

Calling our program now requires us to specify an option.

The parse_args() method actually returns some data from the options specified, in this case, echo.

The variable is some form of magic that argparse performs for free (i.e. no need to specify which
variable that value is stored in). You will also notice that its name matches the string argument given
to the method, echo.
Note however that, although the help display looks nice and all, it currently is not as helpful as it can be.
For example we see that we got echo as a positional argument, but we dont know what it does, other than
by guessing or by reading the source code. So, lets make it a bit more useful:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("echo", help="echo the string you use here")
args = parser.parse_args()
print args.echo

And we get:

$ python prog.py -h
usage: prog.py [-h] echo

positional arguments:
echo echo the string you use here

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit

Now, how about doing something even more useful:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", help="display a square of a given number")
args = parser.parse_args()
print args.square**2

Following is a result of running the code:

$ python prog.py 4
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "prog.py", line 5, in <module>
print args.square**2
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for ** or pow(): 'str' and 'int'

That didnt go so well. Thats because argparse treats the options we give it as strings, unless we tell it
otherwise. So, lets tell argparse to treat that input as an integer:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", help="display a square of a given number",
type=int)
args = parser.parse_args()
print args.square**2

Following is a result of running the code:

$ python prog.py 4
16
$ python prog.py four
usage: prog.py [-h] square
prog.py: error: argument square: invalid int value: 'four'

That went well. The program now even helpfully quits on bad illegal input before proceeding.
4 Introducing Optional arguments

So far we have been playing with positional arguments. Let us have a look on how to add optional ones:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("--verbosity", help="increase output verbosity")
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.verbosity:
print "verbosity turned on"

And the output:

$ python prog.py --verbosity 1

verbosity turned on
$ python prog.py
$ python prog.py --help
usage: prog.py [-h] [--verbosity VERBOSITY]

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--verbosity VERBOSITY
increase output verbosity
$ python prog.py --verbosity
usage: prog.py [-h] [--verbosity VERBOSITY]
prog.py: error: argument --verbosity: expected one argument

Here is what is happening:

The program is written so as to display something when --verbosity is specified and display nothing
when not.

To show that the option is actually optional, there is no error when running the program without
it. Note that by default, if an optional argument isnt used, the relevant variable, in this case args.
verbosity, is given None as a value, which is the reason it fails the truth test of the if statement.

The help message is a bit different.

When using the --verbosity option, one must also specify some value, any value.

The above example accepts arbitrary integer values for --verbosity, but for our simple program, only two
values are actually useful, True or False. Lets modify the code accordingly:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("--verbose", help="increase output verbosity",
action="store_true")
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.verbose:
print "verbosity turned on"

And the output:

$ python prog.py --verbose

verbosity turned on
$ python prog.py --verbose 1
usage: prog.py [-h] [--verbose]
prog.py: error: unrecognized arguments: 1
$ python prog.py --help
usage: prog.py [-h] [--verbose]

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--verbose increase output verbosity

Here is what is happening:

The option is now more of a flag than something that requires a value. We even changed the name of
the option to match that idea. Note that we now specify a new keyword, action, and give it the value
"store_true". This means that, if the option is specified, assign the value True to args.verbose. Not
specifying it implies False.

It complains when you specify a value, in true spirit of what flags actually are.

Notice the different help text.

4.1 Short options

If you are familiar with command line usage, you will notice that I havent yet touched on the topic of short
versions of the options. Its quite simple:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", help="increase output verbosity",
action="store_true")
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.verbose:
print "verbosity turned on"

And here goes:

$ python prog.py -v
verbosity turned on
$ python prog.py --help
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v]

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --verbose increase output verbosity

Note that the new ability is also reflected in the help text.

5 Combining Positional and Optional arguments

Our program keeps growing in complexity:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", type=int,
help="display a square of a given number")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", action="store_true",
help="increase output verbosity")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.square**2
if args.verbose:
print "the square of {} equals {}".format(args.square, answer)
else:
print answer

And now the output:

$ python prog.py
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v] square
prog.py: error: the following arguments are required: square
$ python prog.py 4
16
$ python prog.py 4 --verbose
the square of 4 equals 16
$ python prog.py --verbose 4
the square of 4 equals 16

Weve brought back a positional argument, hence the complaint.

Note that the order does not matter.

How about we give this program of ours back the ability to have multiple verbosity values, and actually get
to use them:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", type=int,
help="display a square of a given number")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbosity", type=int,
help="increase output verbosity")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.square**2
if args.verbosity == 2:
print "the square of {} equals {}".format(args.square, answer)
elif args.verbosity == 1:
print "{}^2 == {}".format(args.square, answer)
else:
print answer

And the output:

$ python prog.py 4
16
$ python prog.py 4 -v
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v VERBOSITY] square
prog.py: error: argument -v/--verbosity: expected one argument
$ python prog.py 4 -v 1
4^2 == 16
$ python prog.py 4 -v 2
the square of 4 equals 16
$ python prog.py 4 -v 3
16

These all look good except the last one, which exposes a bug in our program. Lets fix it by restricting the
values the --verbosity option can accept:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", type=int,
help="display a square of a given number")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbosity", type=int, choices=[0, 1, 2],
help="increase output verbosity")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.square**2
if args.verbosity == 2:
print "the square of {} equals {}".format(args.square, answer)
elif args.verbosity == 1:
print "{}^2 == {}".format(args.square, answer)
else:
print answer

And the output:

$ python prog.py 4 -v 3
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v {0,1,2}] square
prog.py: error: argument -v/--verbosity: invalid choice: 3 (choose from 0, 1, 2)
$ python prog.py 4 -h
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v {0,1,2}] square

positional arguments:
square display a square of a given number

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v {0,1,2}, --verbosity {0,1,2}
increase output verbosity

Note that the change also reflects both in the error message as well as the help string.

Now, lets use a different approach of playing with verbosity, which is pretty common. It also matches the
way the CPython executable handles its own verbosity argument (check the output of python --help):

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", type=int,
help="display the square of a given number")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbosity", action="count",
help="increase output verbosity")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.square**2
if args.verbosity == 2:
print "the square of {} equals {}".format(args.square, answer)
elif args.verbosity == 1:
print "{}^2 == {}".format(args.square, answer)
else:
print answer

We have introduced another action, count, to count the number of occurrences of a specific optional
arguments:

$ python prog.py 4
16
$ python prog.py 4 -v
4^2 == 16
$ python prog.py 4 -vv
the square of 4 equals 16
$ python prog.py 4 --verbosity --verbosity
the square of 4 equals 16
$ python prog.py 4 -v 1
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v] square
prog.py: error: unrecognized arguments: 1
$ python prog.py 4 -h
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v] square

positional arguments:
square display a square of a given number

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --verbosity increase output verbosity
$ python prog.py 4 -vvv
16

Yes, its now more of a flag (similar to action="store_true") in the previous version of our script. That
should explain the complaint.

It also behaves similar to store_true action.

Now heres a demonstration of what the count action gives. Youve probably seen this sort of usage
before.

And, just like the store_true action, if you dont specify the -v flag, that flag is considered to have
None value.

As should be expected, specifying the long form of the flag, we should get the same output.

Sadly, our help output isnt very informative on the new ability our script has acquired, but that can
always be fixed by improving the documentation for our script (e.g. via the help keyword argument).

That last output exposes a bug in our program.

Lets fix:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", type=int,
help="display a square of a given number")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbosity", action="count",
help="increase output verbosity")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.square**2

# bugfix: replace == with >=

if args.verbosity >= 2:
print "the square of {} equals {}".format(args.square, answer)
elif args.verbosity >= 1:
print "{}^2 == {}".format(args.square, answer)
else:
print answer

And this is what it gives:

$ python prog.py 4 -vvv

the square of 4 equals 16
$ python prog.py 4 -vvvv
the square of 4 equals 16
$ python prog.py 4
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "prog.py", line 11, in <module>
if args.verbosity >= 2:
TypeError: unorderable types: NoneType() >= int()

First output went well, and fixes the bug we had before. That is, we want any value >= 2 to be as
verbose as possible.

Third output not so good.

Lets fix that bug:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("square", type=int,
help="display a square of a given number")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbosity", action="count", default=0,
help="increase output verbosity")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.square**2
if args.verbosity >= 2:
print "the square of {} equals {}".format(args.square, answer)
elif args.verbosity >= 1:
print "{}^2 == {}".format(args.square, answer)
else:
print answer

Weve just introduced yet another keyword, default. Weve set it to 0 in order to make it comparable to the
other int values. Remember that by default, if an optional argument isnt specified, it gets the None value,
and that cannot be compared to an int value (hence the TypeError exception).

And:

$ python prog.py 4
16

You can go quite far just with what weve learned so far, and we have only scratched the surface. The
argparse module is very powerful, and well explore a bit more of it before we end this tutorial.

6 Getting a little more advanced

What if we wanted to expand our tiny program to perform other powers, not just squares:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("x", type=int, help="the base")
parser.add_argument("y", type=int, help="the exponent")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbosity", action="count", default=0)
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.x**args.y
if args.verbosity >= 2:
print "{} to the power {} equals {}".format(args.x, args.y, answer)
elif args.verbosity >= 1:
print "{}^{} == {}".format(args.x, args.y, answer)
else:
print answer
Output:

$ python prog.py
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v] x y
prog.py: error: the following arguments are required: x, y
$ python prog.py -h
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v] x y

positional arguments:
x the base
y the exponent

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --verbosity
$ python prog.py 4 2 -v
4^2 == 16

Notice that so far weve been using verbosity level to change the text that gets displayed. The following
example instead uses verbosity level to display more text instead:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("x", type=int, help="the base")
parser.add_argument("y", type=int, help="the exponent")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbosity", action="count", default=0)
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.x**args.y
if args.verbosity >= 2:
print "Running '{}'".format(__file__)
if args.verbosity >= 1:
print "{}^{} ==".format(args.x, args.y),
print answer

Output:

$ python prog.py 4 2
16
$ python prog.py 4 2 -v
4^2 == 16
$ python prog.py 4 2 -vv
Running 'prog.py'
4^2 == 16

6.1 Conflicting options

So far, we have been working with two methods of an argparse.ArgumentParser instance. Lets introduce
a third one, add_mutually_exclusive_group(). It allows for us to specify options that conflict with each
other. Lets also change the rest of the program so that the new functionality makes more sense: well
introduce the --quiet option, which will be the opposite of the --verbose one:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", action="store_true")
group.add_argument("-q", "--quiet", action="store_true")
parser.add_argument("x", type=int, help="the base")
parser.add_argument("y", type=int, help="the exponent")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.x**args.y

if args.quiet:
print answer
elif args.verbose:
print "{} to the power {} equals {}".format(args.x, args.y, answer)
else:
print "{}^{} == {}".format(args.x, args.y, answer)

Our program is now simpler, and weve lost some functionality for the sake of demonstration. Anyways,
heres the output:

$ python prog.py 4 2
4^2 == 16
$ python prog.py 4 2 -q
16
$ python prog.py 4 2 -v
4 to the power 2 equals 16
$ python prog.py 4 2 -vq
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v | -q] x y
prog.py: error: argument -q/--quiet: not allowed with argument -v/--verbose
$ python prog.py 4 2 -v --quiet
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v | -q] x y
prog.py: error: argument -q/--quiet: not allowed with argument -v/--verbose

That should be easy to follow. Ive added that last output so you can see the sort of flexibility you get, i.e.
mixing long form options with short form ones.

Before we conclude, you probably want to tell your users the main purpose of your program, just in case
they dont know:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="calculate X to the power of Y")

group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
group.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", action="store_true")
group.add_argument("-q", "--quiet", action="store_true")
parser.add_argument("x", type=int, help="the base")
parser.add_argument("y", type=int, help="the exponent")
args = parser.parse_args()
answer = args.x**args.y

if args.quiet:
print answer
elif args.verbose:
print "{} to the power {} equals {}".format(args.x, args.y, answer)
else:
print "{}^{} == {}".format(args.x, args.y, answer)

Note that slight difference in the usage text. Note the [-v | -q], which tells us that we can either use -v or
-q, but not both at the same time:
$ python prog.py --help
usage: prog.py [-h] [-v | -q] x y

calculate X to the power of Y

positional arguments:
x the base
y the exponent

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --verbose
-q, --quiet

7 Conclusion

The argparse module offers a lot more than shown here. Its docs are quite detailed and thorough, and full
of examples. Having gone through this tutorial, you should easily digest them without feeling overwhelmed.