File as command line argument for argparse - error message if argument is not valid

Question

I am currently using argparse like this:

import argparse
from argparse import ArgumentParser

parser = ArgumentParser(description=\"ikjMatrix multiplication\")
p         


        

Answer 1

I have just found this one:

def extant_file(x):
    """
    'Type' for argparse - checks that file exists but does not open.
    """
    if not os.path.exists(x):
        # Argparse uses the ArgumentTypeError to give a rejection message like:
        # error: argument input: x does not exist
        raise argparse.ArgumentTypeError("{0} does not exist".format(x))
    return x

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import argparse, sys, os
    from argparse import ArgumentParser

    parser = ArgumentParser(description="ikjMatrix multiplication")
    parser.add_argument("-i", "--input",
        dest="filename", required=True, type=extant_file,
        help="input file with two matrices", metavar="FILE")
    args = parser.parse_args()

    A, B = read(args.filename)
    C = ikjMatrixProduct(A, B)
    printMatrix(C, args.output)

Source: fhcrc.github.com