Current thinking on required options

[Barry]

> On 19 Apr 2021, at 10:57, Loris Bennett <loris.bennett at fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have various small programs which tend to have an interface like the
> following example:
> 
>  usage: grocli [-h] [-o {check,add,delete}] [-u USERS [USERS ...]] [-g GROUP]
> 
>  Command line grouper tool
> 
>  optional arguments:
>    -h, --help            show this help message and exit
>    -o {check,add,delete}, --operation {check,add,delete}
>                          operation to apply
>    -u USERS [USERS ...], --users USERS [USERS ...]
>                          users to apply operation to
>    -g GROUP, --group GROUP
>                          group to apply operation to
> 
> However, the options -o, -u, and -g are required, not optional.

You could use positional args like this:

grocli check user,user group

Barry

> 
> The documentation
> 
>  https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html#required
> 
> advises against required options and here
> 
>  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24180527/argparse-required-arguments-listed-under-optional-arguments
> 
> a way of adding a section 'required arguments' to the usage is
> described.
> 
> I would be interested to know what the general thinking on "required
> options" is.  Is there just a better way of designing such interfaces?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Loris
> 
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