python calling a module that uses argparser

Question

This is probably a silly question, but I have a python script that current takes in a bunch of arguements using argparser and I would like to load this script as a module in ano

Answer 1

The first argument to parse_args is a list of arguments. By default it's None which means use sys.argv. So you can arrange your script like this:

import argparse as ap

def main(raw_args=None):
    parser = ap.ArgumentParser(
        description='Gathers parameters.')
    parser.add_argument('-f', metavar='--file', type=ap.FileType('r'), action='store', dest='file',
                        required=True, help='Path to json parameter file')
    parser.add_argument('-t', metavar='--type', type=str, action='store', dest='type',
                        required=True, help='Type of parameter file.')
    parser.add_argument('-g', metavar='--group', type=str, action='store', dest='group',
                        required=False, help='Group to apply parameters to')
    # Gather the provided arguements as an array.
    args = parser.parse_args(raw_args)
    print(vars(args))


# Run with command line arguments precisely when called directly
# (rather than when imported)
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

And then elsewhere:

from first_module import main

main(['-f', '/etc/hosts', '-t', 'json'])

Output:

{'group': None, 'file': <_io.TextIOWrapper name='/etc/hosts' mode='r' encoding='UTF-8'>, 'type': 'json'}