Cliparse (CLI with ArgumentParser)

Cliparse is a framework to make CLI with 'Argparse' and 'Cmd'

Concept

There are times when it is necessary that to provide a command line client like MySQL Command Line Client.

$ mysql -uroot -p

Type 'help;', or '\h' for help. Type '\C' to clean current input statement.

mysql> use test_db;

Some of legacy CLI framework we could have chosen are not easy to extend or written in low productivity languages. Cliparse is written with some of the most used modules in Python.

Cmd is a very common module of python for making CLI application. It provides a prompt to gets command input from user, tab auto completion, help message or usage. Actually, It's already super easy enough to make CLI applications with Cmd.

Argparse is an argument parser in command line interface. It parses options and arguments. With some short options, we can check validations which several types of arguments such as string or integer and boolean.

parser = ArgumentParser(
        prog='',
        description='description',
        epilog='end of description', )
    sub_parser = parser.add_subparsers(dest='sub_parser')

    # Setting
    # ==========================================================================
    setting_parser = sub_parser.add_parser('setting', help='Setting Command')

    # Setting - DB Initializing
    # ==========================================================================
    setting_init_db_parser = setting_parser.add_subparsers(
        dest='init', help='Initialize the database')

    init_db_parser = setting_init_db_parser.add_parser(
        name='initialize-db', help='Initialize database')
    init_db_parser.add_argument('-d', '--init-db', action='store_true',
                                help='initialize database.')
    init_db_parser.add_argument('-m', '--dummy-members', action='store_true',
                                help='insert dummy members.')
    init_db_parser.add_argument('-b', '--dummy-books', action='store_true',
                                help='insert dummy books.')
    init_db_parser.add_argument('-r', '--dummy-rental', action='store_true',
                                help='insert dummy rental.')
    init_db_parser.set_defaults(func=initialize_db)

These awesome modules are already used for a long time and easy to find its usage on web sites.

What Cliparse does is to read user's argument parsers, to print the parser groups and parameters for running its function, and to make completing command line when tab. And print a result data of the function defined at the parser with some simple table viewer.

Cliparse is very simple. That's all it does.

Features

• All command line input validation checking by Argparse
• Easy command line input with tab auto completion

Installation

$ pip install cliparse

or

$ python setup.py install

Running

$ python -m cliparse ./sample_cli/cli.py 

Running with docker

If you use docker, you can try it like below.

Build

$ docker build -t cliparse:latest .

or

$ docker-compose build

Running

the volume option for mounting host directory where the sample cli is.

$ docker run -it -v $(pwd):/root --rm cliparse sample_cli/cli.py 

or

$ docker-compose run -v $(pwd):/root --rm cliparse sample_cli/cli.py

sample_cli/cli.py

This sample cli file is also able to run without Cliparse.

python sample_cli/cli.py -h

---

Sample

There is a simple sample cli which is able to try basic CRUD. It is in the directory named sample_cli/cli.py. Please run command below and try to edit as you want.

Things you can do

Help

Use help command to learn more about a command's usage.

# Help
(Cmd) help

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
help  manager  setting

(Cmd) manager -h
usage:  manager [-h] {book} ...

positional arguments:
  {book}      Initialize the database
    book      setting command

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

(Cmd) manager book -h
usage: manager book [-h] [-r | -t] {insert,update,delete} ...

positional arguments:
  {insert,update,delete}

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -r, --raw-data        show the data as raw
  -t, --simple-table    show the data with simple table

Tapping tab key

Use Tab key to autocomplete commands in the command line. It also shows a list of commands you can use.

Choosing presentation style

# show --raw-data
(Cmd) manager book --raw-data
[
    {
        "author": "John Doe",
        "title": "How to learn speaking English",
        "publisher": "Magic House"
    },
    {
        "author": "George Orwell",
        "title": "1984",
        "publisher": "Motihari"
    }
]

# show data with simple table
(Cmd) manager book --simple-table
|    | author        | title                         | publisher   |
|----+---------------+-------------------------------+-------------|
|  0 | John Doe      | How to learn speaking English | Magic House |
|  1 | George Orwell | 1984                          | Motihari    |

Contributes

Running as development mode

You don't need to build the docker image every time whenever source code changes.

docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml run --rm cliparse