argdispatch 1.3.1

A drop-in replacement for `argparse` dispatching subcommand calls to functions, modules or binaries.

If your parser has a few subcommands, you can parse them with argparse. If you have more, you still can, but you will get a huge, unreadable code. This module makes this easier by dispatching subcommand calls to functions, modules or binaries.

Examples

Example 1 : Manual definition of subcommands

For instance, consider the following code for mycommand.py:

import sys
from argdispatch import ArgumentParser

def foo(args):
    """A function associated to subcommand `foo`."""
    print("Doing interesting stuff")
    sys.exit(1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = ArgumentParser()
    subparser = parser.add_subparsers()

    subparser.add_function(foo)
    subparser.add_module("bar")
    subparser.add_executable("baz")

     parser.parse_args()

With this simple code:

• mycommand.py foo -v --arg=2 is equivalent to the python code foo(['-v', '--arg=2']);

• mycommand.py bar -v --arg=2 is equivalent to python -m bar -v --arg=2;

• mycommand.py baz -v --arg=2 is equivalent to baz -v --arg=2.

Then, each function, module or binary does whatever it wants with the arguments.

Example 2 : Automatic definition of subcommands

With programs like git, if a git-foo binary exists, then calling git foo --some=arguments is equivalent to git-foo --some=arguments. The following code, in myprogram.py copies this behaviour:

import sys
from argdispatch import ArgumentParser

if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = ArgumentParser()
    subparser = parser.add_subparsers()

    subparser.add_submodules("myprogram")
    subparser.add_prefix_executables("myprogram-")

    parser.parse_args()

With this program, given that binary myprogram-foo and python module myprogram.bar.__main__.py exist:

• myprogram foo -v --arg=2 is equivalent to myprogram-foo -v --arg=2;

• myprogram bar -v --arg=2 is equivalent to python -m myprogram.bar -v --arg=2.

Example 3 : Defining subcommands with entry points

Now that your program is popular, people start writing plugins. Great! You want to allow them to add subcommands to your program. To do so, simply use this code:

import sys
from argdispatch import ArgumentParser

if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = ArgumentParser()
    subparser = parser.add_subparsers()

    # You probably should only have one of those.
    subparser.add_entrypoints_functions("myprogram.subcommand.function")
    subparser.add_entrypoints_modules("myprogram.subcommand.module")

    parser.parse_args()

With this code, plugin writers can add lines like those in their setup.cfg:

[options.entry_points]
myprogram.subcommand.function =
    foo = mypluginfoo:myfunction
myprogram.subcommand.module =
    bar = mypluginbar

Then, given than function myfunction() exists in module mypluginfoo, and than module mypluginbar exists:

• myprogram foo -v --arg=2 is equivalent to the python code myfunction(['-v', '--arg=2']);

• myprogram bar -v --arg=2 is equivalent to python -m mypluginbar -v --arg=2.

Documentation

The complete documentation is available on readthedocs.

To compile it from source, download and run:

cd doc && make html

What’s new?

See changelog.

Download and install

• From sources:

  • Download: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argdispatch

  • Install (in a virtualenv, if you do not want to mess with your distribution installation system):

    python3 -m pip install .

• From pip:

  pip install argdispatch

• Quick and dirty Debian (and Ubuntu?) package

  This requires stdeb to be installed:

  python3 setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command bdist_deb
  sudo dpkg -i deb_dist/argdispatch-<VERSION>_all.deb