Python argparse and sys.argv

Question

I am making a script which automatically download and rename albums from bandcamp purchases to my server. For now i am passing sys.argv to the script like

python script.py Artistname Albumname Year DownloadLink Genre

then in the script i set variables like

artist = sys.argv[1] 
album = sys.argv[2] 
year = sys.argv[3]
link = sys.argv[4]
genre = sys.argv[5]
do commands with these vars

Now i wanted to use argparse instead maybe with a little help commands too. I have read the python docs about it but i cant seems to make it work.. Any help?

Answer 1

You haven't specified an actual problem. That being said, I prefer defining my required args in a function.

import argparse

def cli_args(self):
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
         description='This is an example')
    parser.add_argument('--arg1', dest='agr1', required=True,
                        help='the first arg. This is required')
    parser.add_argument('--arg2', dest='agr2',default=0,
                        help='another arg. this will default to 0')
     # return dictionary of args
     return vars(parser.parse_args())

Answer 2

Try click.pocoo.org and don't mind with argparse.

For self-documenting example of usage (launch like >python script.py --count 3 --name Nikolay):

import click

@click.command()
@click.option('--count', default=1, help='Number of greetings.')
@click.option('--name', prompt='Your name',
              help='The person to greet.')
def hello(count, name):
    """Simple program that greets NAME for a total of COUNT times."""
    for x in range(count):
        click.echo('Hello %s!' % name)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    hello()

Try @click.argument instead of option if you want exactly what you wrote in the topic.

Answer 3

I have tried this

def main():                                                                                                                       

 parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='xxxx', prog='xxxx') 
 parser.add_argument('artist', help='Artist name, separted by "_". Ex: The_Beatles')
 parser.add_argument('album', help='Album title, separated by "_". Ex: The_Joshua_Tree')
 parser.add_argument('yar', help='Release year')
 parser.add_argument('url', help='Bandcamp download url inside bracelets.')
 parser.add_argument('genre', help='Album genre, separted by a point. Ex: hip.hop')
 args = parser.parse_args()

main()

Then in the script i have

release = ("%s - %s - (%s) - [FLAC]"%(artist,album,year)).replace('_',' ')               

If i run the script with

 script.py Artist Album Year URL Genre

It Give me an error that global name release is not defined. Where is the error? If i run

script.py -h

I have the correct help with all the positional arguments and help..