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[Python-Dev] PEP 389: argparse - new command line parsing module

Steven Bethard steven.bethard at gmail.com
Wed Sep 30 03:26:04 CEST 2009 
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Keeping getopt around *and* including a "add_getopt_arguments" method in
> argparse is probably the best of both worlds, in that it allows for
> relatively straightforward evolution of an application:
>
> 1. Start with getopt
> 2. As the getopt argument parsing gets twisty and arcane and maintaining
> the help string becomes a nightmare, move to argparse with the
> "add_getopt_arguments" method.
> 3. Over time, convert more arguments to proper argparse arguments with
> full documentation.

One thing that wouldn't be good in this transition is that
"add_getopt_arguments" can only generate the part of the help string
that says "-a" and "--author" exist as options -- it can't add the
additional bit of text that says what they do because that's not
provided to the getopt API.

I suspect this makes the transition less convenient because with
getopt you were probably already manually maintaining a usage message
that had at least some of this information, and switching to
"add_getopt_arguments" would mean throwing this information away.

Steve
-- 
Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis?
Did Steve tell you that?
        --- The Hiphopopotamus
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