argh 0.23.3 (beta)

An unobtrusive argparse wrapper with natural syntax

In a nutshell

Argh-powered applications are simple but flexible:

Sounds good? Check the tutorial!

Relation to argparse

Argh is fully compatible with argparse. You can mix Argh-agnostic and Argh-aware code. Just keep in mind that the dispatcher does some extra work that a custom dispatcher may not do.

Installation

Using pip:

$ pip install argh

Arch Linux (AUR):

$ yaourt python-argh

Examples

A very simple application with one command:

.. code-block:: python

    import argh

    def main():
        return 'Hello world'

    argh.dispatch_command(main)

A potentially modular application with multiple commands:

.. code-block:: python

    import argh

    # declaring:

    def echo(text):
        return text

    def greeter(name, greeting='hello'):
        return greeting + ', ' + name

    # assembling:

    parser = argh.ArghParser()
    parser.add_commands([echo, greeter])

    # dispatching:

    if __name__ == '__main__':
        parser.dispatch()

The powerful API of argparse is also available:

.. code-block:: python

    @arg('text', default='hello world', nargs='+', help='The message')
    def echo(text):
        print text

The approaches can be safely combined even up to this level:

.. code-block:: python

    # adding help to `foo` which is in the function signature:
    @arg('foo', help='blah')
    # these are not in the signature so they go to **kwargs:
    @arg('baz')
    @arg('-q', '--quux')
    # the function itself:
    def cmd(foo, bar=1, *args, **kwargs):
        yield foo
        yield bar
        yield ', '.join(args)
        yield kwargs['baz']
        yield kwargs['quux']

Links

• Project home page (Bitbucket)
• Documentation (Read the Docs)
• Package distribution (PyPI)
• Questions, requests, bug reports, etc.:
  • Issue tracker
  • Mailing list (subscribe to get important announcements)
  • Direct e-mail (neithere at gmail com)
  • Twitter (to get notified of commits; mostly for lulz)

Author

Developed by Andrey Mikhaylenko since 2010.

See file AUTHORS for a complete list of contributors to this library.

Licensing

Argh is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Argh is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with Argh. If not, see <http://gnu.org/licenses/>.