using optparser

[Jonathan Gardner]

On Oct 16, 7:59 pm, jimgardener <jimgarde... at gmail.com> wrote:
> hi
> I have a program which I call  findmatch that expects these arguments
> 1.a person name
> 2.a group name
> 3.an integer
> 4.a float value
>
> I thought I would allow user to call this program either using options
> or using positional arguments in a predefined order
> ie,
> findmatch  -f schoolmates -i jon -t 3.5 -n 115
> or
> findmatch jon schoolmates 115 3.5
>
> I tried to code this using optparser..
>
> def parse_arguments():
>     usage = """usage: %prog [options]
>     eg:
>     findmatch -i jon -f schoolmates   -n 115 -t 3.5
>     """
>     parser = OptionParser(usage)
>
>     parser.add_option('-i','--person',dest='personname',help='person
> to be matched')
>     parser.add_option('-f','-group',dest='groupname', help='group
> containing people to be tested against')
>     parser.add_option('-n','--
> num',dest='samplenumber',type='int',help='how many samples to be used
> ')
>     parser.add_option('-t','--
> cutoff',dest='cutoff',type='float',help='some upperlimit ')
>
>     options,args = parser.parse_args()
>
>     def check_if_person_name_valid(name):
>         if not person_exists(name):
>             parser.error('you must give an valid person name')
>     def check_if_group_name_valid(name):
>         if not group_exists(name):
>             parser.error('you must give a valid group')
>
>     if not options.personname or not options.groupname:
>         print parser.format_help()
>         parser.exit()
>     check_if_person_name_valid(options.personname)
>     check_if_group_name_valid(options.groupname)
>
>     return options
>
> iif __name__=='__main__':
>     options = parse_arguments()
>     person_name = options.personname
>     group = options.groupname
>     number_of_samples_to_use = options.samplenumber
>     cutoff = options.cutoff
>     msg = 'You are trying to match {0} against group {1} using {2}
> samples \
> and using {3:2.2f} as the upper limit '
>     print msg.format(person_name ,  group , number_of_samples_to_use ,
> cutoff )
>
> This can handle keyword arguments.But if I have to allow a user to
> input arguments without options
> ie
> findmatch jon schoolmates 115 3.5
>
> can I do this in the above method? If user enters the above line ,the
> options instance would have
> {  'personname': None ,'groupname': None ...}
> and
> args will contain a list of positional arguments .
>
> I am not sure how this can be processed so that a user is given
> freedom to choose either.
> Any suggestions most welcome.
> regards,
> jim

Jim, the secret sauce here is the "args" result from the parsing.

What you do is you check to see if the args length is expected, and
then grab args in the order you want. Then you can stick them in the
options.

IE:

  if len(args) == 4:
      options['personname'] = args[0]
      options['groupname'] = args[1]
      ... etc ...

I don't know how you want to resolve what happens if they use the
options and ordered args. As a general rule of thumb, I try to keep
the two separate. Options should be optional, while ordered args are
not.