Using argparse in conjunction with sys.argv in Python

Question

I currently have a script, which uses file globbing via the sys.argv variable like this:

if len(sys.argv) > 1:
        for filename in sys.argv[1:]:

This works great for processing a bunch of files; however, I would like to use this with the argparse module as well. So, I would like my program to be able to handle something like the following:

foo@bar:~$ myScript.py --filter=xyz *.avi

Has anyone tried to do this, or have some pointers on how to proceed?

Answer 1

If I got you correctly, your question is about passing a list of files together with a few flag or optional parameters to the command. If I got you right, then you just must leverage the argument settings in argparse:

File p.py

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='SO test.')
parser.add_argument('--doh', action='store_true')
parser.add_argument('files', nargs='*')  # This is it!!
args = parser.parse_args()
print(args.doh)
print(args.files)

The commented line above inform the parser to expect an undefined number >= 0 (nargs ='*') of positional arguments.

Running the script from the command line gives these outputs:

$ ./p.py --doh *.py
True
['p2.py', 'p.py']
$ ./p.py *.py
False
['p2.py', 'p.py']
$ ./p.py p.py
False
['p.py']
$ ./p.py 
False
[]

Observe how the files will be in a list regardless of them being several or just one.

HTH!