On 02/02/13 08:24, Scurvy Scott wrote:
One last question on this topic..
I'd like to call the files and the string form the command line like
Python whatever.py STRINGTOSEARCH NEWFILE FILETOOPEN
My understanding is that it would be accomplished as such
import sys
myString = sys.argv[1]
filetoopen = sys.argv[2]
newfile = sys.argv[3]
ETC ETC CODE HERE
Is this correct/pythonic? Is there a more recommended way? Am I retarded?
Best practice is to check if your program is being run as a script before doing
anything. That way you can still import the module for testing or similar:
def main(mystring, infile, outfile):
# do stuff here
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Running as a script.
import sys
mystring = sys.argv[1]
infile = sys.argv[2]
outfile = sys.argv[3]
main(mystring, infile, outfile)
Best practice for scripts (not just Python scripts, but *any* script) is to provide help
when asked. Insert this after the "import sys" line, before you start
processing:
if '-h' in sys.argv or '--help' in sys.argv:
print(help_text)
sys.exit()
If your argument processing is more complicated that above, you should use one
of the three argument parsing modules that Python provides:
http://docs.python.org/2/library/getopt.html
http://docs.python.org/2/library/optparse.html (deprecated -- do not use this
for new code)
http://docs.python.org/2/library/argparse.html
getopt is (in my opinion) the simplest to get started, but the weakest.
There are also third-party argument parsers that you could use. Here's one
which I have never used but am intrigued by:
http://docopt.org/
--
Steven
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