Permit argparse global flags after subcommand

Question

I am using argparse to build a command with subcommands:

mycommand [GLOBAL FLAGS] subcommand [FLAGS]

I would like the global flags to work whether they are befor

Answer 1

This is a perfect use case for parents argparse feature:

Sometimes, several parsers share a common set of arguments. Rather than repeating the definitions of these arguments, a single parser with all the shared arguments and passed to parents= argument to ArgumentParser can be used.

Define a base parent ArgumentParser, add arguments that will be shared across subparsers. Then, add subparsers and set your base parser as a parent by providing parents keyword argument:

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(dest='subparser_name')

base_subparser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)
# define common shared arguments
base_subparser.add_argument('--disable')

sp = subparsers.add_parser('compile', parents=[base_subparser])
# define custom arguments
sp = subparsers.add_parser('launch', parents=[base_subparser])
# define custom arguments

Note that add_help=False here helps to avoid problems with conflicting help argument.

Also see: Python argparse - Add argument to multiple subparsers.