Is anyone able to tell me how to write a conditional for an argument on a python script? I want it to print "Argument2 Entered" if it is run with a second command line arguments such as:
python script.py argument1 argument2
And print "No second argument" if it is run without command line arguments, like this:
python script.py argument1
Is this possible?
import sys
if len(sys.argv)==2: # first entry in sys.argv is script itself...
print "No second argument"
elif len(sys.argv)==3:
print "Second argument"
There are many answers to this, depending on what exactly you want to do and how much flexibility you are likely to need.
The simplest solution is to examine the variable sys.argv, which is a list containing all of the command-line arguments. (It also contains the name of the script as the first element.) To do this, simply look at len(sys.argv) and change behaviour based on its value.
However, this is often not flexible enough for what people expect command-line programs to do. For example, if you want a flag (-i, --no-defaults, ...) then it's not obvious how to write one with just sys.argv. Likewise for arguments (--dest-dir="downloads"). There are therefore many modules people have written to simplify this sort of argument parsing.
The built-in solution is argparse, which is powerful and pretty easy-to-use but not particularly concise.
A clever solution is plac, which inspects the signature of the main function to try to deduce what the command-line arguments should be.
There are many ways to do this simple thing in Python. If you are interested to know more than I recommend to read this article. BTW I am giving you one solution below:
import click
'''
Prerequisite: # python -m pip install click
run: python main.py ttt yyy
'''
#click.command(context_settings=dict(ignore_unknown_options=True))
#click.argument("argument1")
#click.argument("argument2")
def main(argument1, argument2):
print(f"argument1={argument1} and argument2={argument2}")
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
Following block should be self explanatory
$ ./first.py second third 4th 5th
5
$ cat first.py
#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
print (len(sys.argv))
This is related to many other posts depending upon where you are going with this, so I'll put four here:
What's the best way to grab/parse command line arguments passed to a Python script?
Implementing a "[command] [action] [parameter]" style command-line interfaces?
How can I process command line arguments in Python?
How do I format positional argument help using Python's optparse?
But the direct answer to your question from the Python docs:
sys.argv -
The list of command line arguments passed to a Python script. argv[0] is the script name (it is operating system dependent whether this is a full pathname or not). If the command was executed using the -c command line option to the interpreter, argv[0] is set to the string '-c'. If no script name was passed to the Python interpreter, argv[0] is the empty string.
To loop over the standard input, or the list of files given on the command line, see the fileinput module.
Related
I have a saved python script. I run this python script from the command prompt in Windows 10.
This is as simple as navigating to the directory where the script is located and then typing:
python myscript.py
and the script will run fine.
However, sometimes, I want to run this script such that a variable within that script is set to one value and sometimes to another. This variable tells the script which port to operate an API connection through (if this is relevant).
At the moment, I go into the script each time and change the variable to the one that I want and then run the script after that. Is there a way to set the variable at the time of running the script from the command prompt in Windows 10?
Or are there potentially any other efficient solutions to achieve the same flexibility at the time of running?
Thanks
The usual way to do this is with command-line arguments. In fact, passing a port number is, after passing a list of filenames, almost the paradigm case for command-line arguments.
For simple cases, you can handle this in your code with sys.argv
port = int(sys.argv[1])
Or, if you want a default value:
port = int(sys.argv[1]) if len(sys.argv) > 1 else 12345
Then, to run the program:
python myscript.py 54321
For more complicated cases—when you have multiple flags, some with values, etc.—you usually want to use something like argparse. But you'll probably want to read up a bit on typical command-line interfaces, and maybe look at the arguments of tools you commonly, before designing your first one. Because just looking at all of the options in argparse without knowing what you want in advance can be pretty overwhelming.
Another option is to use an environment variable. This is more tedious if you want to change it for each run, but if you want to set it once for an entire series of runs in a command-line session, or even set a computer-wide default, it's a lot easier.
In the code, you'd look in os.environ:
port = int(os.environ.get('MYSCRIPT_PORT', 12345))
And then, to set a port:
MYSCRIPT_PORT=54321
python myscript.py
You can combine the two: use a command-line argument if present, otherwise fall back to the environment variable, otherwise fall back to a default. Or even add a config file and/or (if you only care about Windows) registry setting. Python itself does something like three-step fallback, as do many major servers, but it may be overkill for your simple use case.
You should look at argparse. Heres an example:
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("-m", help='message to be sent', type=str)
args = (parser.parse_args())
print args.m
Each argument you create is saved like a dictionary so you have to call it in your code like I did with my print statement
"args.m" < ---- This specifies the argument passed you want to do stuff with
here was my input/output:
C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop>python argtest.py -m "Hi"
Hi
C:\Users\Vinny\Desktop>
More info on argparse:https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html
You need the argparse library.
https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html
https://docs.python.org/2/library/argparse.html
I am trying to use Python to run an executable (Windows 7) with parameters. I have been able to make the program run, but the amount of parameters I can use that will prove the Python script worked with parameters is limited. The best one is formatted like so:
-debugoutput debug.txt
I have tested this using a windows shortcut with an edited target and it works, it creates a debug output in the program directory.
Here is the code I am using:
import subprocess
args = [r"C:\Users\MyName\LevelEditor\LevelEditor.exe", "-debugoutput debug.txt"]
subprocess.call(args)
This does run the program, but the debug output is not created. I have tried putting an "r" in front of the parameter but this made no difference. I assume it is a simple formatting error but I can't find any examples to learn from that are doing the same thing.
UPDATE:
Thanks for the answers everyone, all the same, simple formatting error indeed.
In-code definition results in invocation of shell command line:
C:\Users\MyName\LevelEditor\LevelEditor.exe "-debugoutput debug.txt"
As you can see, by merging -debugoutput debug.txt to single list element, you explicitly stated that space between them shouldn't be parsed as command line argument separator.
To achieve expected behavior put file name string as separate element to argument list.
[r"C:\Users\MyName\LevelEditor\LevelEditor.exe", "-debugoutput", "debug.txt"]
As far as I know you need to split the arguments by the space, so your args would look like:
args = [r"C:\Users\MyName\LevelEditor\LevelEditor.exe", "-debugoutput", "debug.txt"]
Does that work?
I do not know if it works, but
import subprocess
args = [r"C:\Users\MyName\LevelEditor\LevelEditor.exe", "-debugoutput", "debug.txt"]
subprocess.run(args)
Following the docs
This question already has answers here:
What does "sys.argv[1]" mean? (What is sys.argv, and where does it come from?)
(9 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
What does the following chunk of code mean? I don't understand the concept of sys.argv. I heard it has something to do with command-line prompts but my vocabulary isn't good enough to understand that. Also the output is strange. I don't understand how a list is pulled up nor how the elements get in there or even where they come from and what they mean. This is really confusing me, so help understanding it would be much appreciated. Please use beinner terms so I can understand it.
import sys
print 'Number of arguments:', len(sys.argv), 'arguments.'
print 'Argument List:', str(sys.argv)
Most programs accept arguments to change how they behave. e.g.
grep some_string myfile.ext
This command (on unix systems) looks for 'some_string' in myfile.ext and prints matching lines to the console.
So the question is how does grep (the program that is being run), know what to look for, or what file to look in? The answer is obvious -- It gets passed those arguments via the command line. You have the power to pass arguments from the commandlint to your python programs too:
python my_python_file.py argument1 argument2
In this case, if my_python_file.py had the contents in your question, sys.argv would contain ['my_python_file.py', 'argument1', 'argument2']
And so you can look in sys.argv and see 'argument1' in there and have your code take certain actions accordingly. Note that it is fairly uncommon to parse sys.argv by hand unless it is a really simple case. Normally, you would use something like argparse to parse the arguments for you and give you back the parsed information in a much more easy to manage format.
sys.argv is a list of strings containing the arguments when the Python script was executed (i.e. >> python main.py arg1 arg2).
Note that the first argument will always be the name of the command. The first "actual" argument is located in sys.argv[1] (assuming at least one argument was passed in).
I'm trying to create a program that can be called from the command line and use keyword arguments in python 2.6. So far I've tried:
#!/usr/bin/python
def read(foo = 5):
print foo
return 0
if __name__ == '__main__'
read()
When I try to run this from the command line: ./test.py the program prints 5 as expected. Is there a way to use ./test.py foo=6? I want to preserve the keyword arguments.
It seems like a simple question, but I haven't found a good source for this.
python has built in library to help you achieve passing command line arguments to a script
argparse. THe usage is a little different then what you are describing in your question though...
On a basic level you can access all command line arguments by sys.argv, which will be a list of arguments
Sorry should have mentioned the python 2.6 library is called optparse
Something like this?
if __name__ == '__main__':
kwargs = dict(x.split('=', 1) for x in sys.argv[1:])
read(**kwargs)
That said, argparse and optparse are probably going to give you something more robust and more natural for someone used to the commandline. (Not to mention, supporting arguments of types other than string.)
Oh, and if what you're really after is just interactive use of your function, use the interactive interpreter; either python or ipython. You'd need to put the code into a file ending in .py and import it, then you could just call it.
A less usual, but very interesting alternative is docopt: a library that generates an argument parser from the help message that you write for your program (on github).
I have a script which takes in few arguments
./hal --runtest=example
where example = /home/user/example.py
how can I pass these arguments in shell script?
I'm having trouble figuring out what you're asking, but assuming your question is "How can a shell script pass dynamic arguments to a command that happens to be written in Python" and you are using a Bourne-family shell (very likely), the simplest correct answer would be
example=/home/user/example.py
./hal "--runtest=$example"
The shell will resolve the quoting and the script will see --runtest=/home/user/example.py without breaking if you later decide to pass in a path containing spaces.
Take a look a the following:
http://lowfatlinux.com/linux-script-variables.html
It is Bash specific though and as per comments above not sure which shell you're using.
Here you'll find all you need in terms of how to pass an argument to a shell script.