CLI Skeleton Library

Generate CLI application from python dictionaries.

A cli-skeleton is a python dictionary which describes the structure of a command line application. This library may convert a cli-skeleton into either an ArgumentParser or a Cmd object.

If you write a lot of command line applications - this library can help reduce the time you spend writing boilerplate argparse and cmd code.

Usage

import cli_skel

print(cli_skel.__version__)

Example 1: A Basic CLI Parser

from cli_skel.argparse_skel import skel_to_argparse

skel = {
    'filenames': {
        'nargs': '+',
        'help': 'Filenames to do something with',
    },
    
    '--log-level': {
        'default': 'warning',
        'choices': {'debug', 'info', 'warning', 'error'},
    },
}

parser = skel_to_argparse(skel).getvalue()
ns = parser.parse_args(['file1', 'file2', 'file3', '--log-level=error'])

The dictionary skel describes the parameters of a cli application which takes positional parameters filenames, and optional parameter --log-level.

The keys of skel are parameter names and their values are dictionaries describing how the argument parser should handle them. Specifically, there must be at least one positional filenames, as well as an optional parameter --log-level with a default value of warning and it may be one of four choices.

The code above is equivalent to the following pure-python implementation:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()

parser.add_argument(
    'filenames',
    nargs='+',
    help='Filenames to do something with',
)

parser.add_argument(
    '--log-level',
    default='warning',
    choices=['debug', 'info', 'warning', 'error'],
)

ns = parser.parse_args(['file1', 'file2', 'file3', '--log-level=error'])

Additionally, each cli-skeleton may be converted to a cmd.Cmd object. When this object's onecmd() is run it will use the skeleton to navigate to the appropriate command to run. This notion is covered by later examples.

Example 2: A More Advanced Use Case

import argparse
from cli_skel.argparse_skel import skel_to_argparse

skel = {
    '--log-file': {
        'default': 'stdout',
        'help': 'output file for logs',
    },
    '--verbose': {
        'default': False,
        'type': bool,
        'action': argparse.BooleanOptionalAction,
    },
    '_': {
        'cmd1': {'->': lambda *_: print('cmd1 is running')},
        'cmd2': {'->': lambda *_: print('cmd2 is running')},
        'cmd3': {
            '--ignore-errors': {
                'type': bool,
                'default': False,
                'action': argparse.BooleanOptionalAction,
            },
            '->': lambda *_: print('cmd3 is running')
        },
    }
}

parser = skel_to_argparse(skel).getvalue()
ns = parser.parse_args(['cmd3', '--ignore-errors'])
ns.target_()
# 'cmd3 is running'

In this example skel is a cli-skeleton which has two optional parameters --log-file and --verbose, and one positional parameter which may be one of cmd1, cmd2 or cmd3. The '_' denotes a group of subparsers which are added when creating the argparse.ArgumentParser. Each one of cmd1, cmd2 and cmd3 is itself a cli-skeleton. For example, cmd3 defines the optional parameter --ignore-errors.

The key '->' in the definitions of cmd1, cmd2 and cmd3 is the target key. If the respective command is selected, then the target value will be part of its payload. It may be used to dispatch commands. In the example above, the cmd3 is selected. Therefore, the argparse.Namespace object which returns from parser.parse_args() has target_ set to the value of skel['_']['cmd3']['->'].

The code above is equivalent to the following pure-python implementation:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()

parser.add_argument(
    '--log-file',
    default='stdout',
    help='output file for logs',
)

parser.add_argument(
    '--verbose',
    default=False,
    type=bool,
    action=argparse.BooleanOptionalAction,
)

subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(dest='toplevel_dest', required=True)

cmd1 = subparsers.add_parser('cmd1')
cmd1.set_defaults(target_=lambda *_: print('cmd1 is running'))

cmd2 = subparsers.add_parser('cmd2')
cmd2.set_defaults(target_=lambda *_: print('cmd2 is running'))

cmd3 = subparsers.add_parser('cmd3')
cmd3.add_argument(
    '--ignore-errors',
    type=bool,
    default=False,
    action=argparse.BooleanOptionalAction,
)
cmd3.set_defaults(target_=lambda *_: print('cmd3 is running'))

ns = parser.parse_args(['cmd3', '--ignore-errors'])
ns.target_()

Example 3: cli-skeletons and cmd.Cmd

Cli-skeletons may also be converted to cmd.Cmd objects.

from cli_skel.cmd_skel import skel_to_cmd

skel = {
    '_': {
        'cmd1': {'->': lambda *_: print('cmd1 is running')},
        'cmd2': {'->': lambda *_: print('cmd2 is running')},
        'cmd3': {
            '--verbose': {'type': bool, 'default': False},
            '->': lambda *_: print('cmd3 is running') },
    }
}

cmd = skel_to_cmd(
    skel,
    intro='hello - welcome...',
    outro='sad to see you go',
    prompt='>> ',
    internal_cmd_prefix='/',
)
cmd.cmdloop()

hello - welcome...
>> cmd1
cmd1 is running
>> cmd3 --verbose
cmd3 is running
>> /exit
sad to see you go

Installation

Install Directly from PyPI

pip install cli-skel

Install Latest from GitHub

pip install 'git+https://github.com/michael-123123/cli-skel.git'

Install From Source

git clone https://github.com/michael-123123/cli-skel.git
cd cli-skel
pip install .

License

cli-skel was created and owned by Michael Frank.

cli-skel is licensed under the terms of the MIT license (see LICENSE file for details.)