optparse variable parsing?

[CJ Kucera]

David Goodger wrote:
> An "option argument".  The answer is no, optparse doesn't support
> optional option arguments.  The main reason is that it makes a command
> like "cmd -abc" impossible to parse reliably: is it equivalent to
> "cmd -a bc" or to "cmd -a -b -c"?  In the Python tradition, optparse
> chooses not to guess.

Yeah, true, there is a measure of ambiguity there.  In that case I
suppose I'd prefer to just sort of "require" the dashes to signify
options, if there's a question as to what's an option and what's
not, but whatever...

> I would suggest that you should have two different options here, a
> simple switch and an option which expects/requires an argument.
> That's easier to document as well.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing, it's just a bit tight because
right now the program already accepts fourteen options, and finding
options that make sense while keeping them down to one-letter
arguments (don't like having to have more than one letter per arg)
can get a bit challenging.  :)

Well, thanks for the confirmation!

-CJ

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