How to parse multiple nested sub-commands using python argparse?

Question

I am implementing a command line program which has interface like this:

cmd [GLOBAL_OPTIONS] {command [COMMAND_OPTS]} [{command [COMMAND_OPTS]} ...]
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Answer 1

parse_known_args returns a Namespace and a list of unknown strings. This is similar to the extra in the checked answer.

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('--foo')
sub = parser.add_subparsers()
for i in range(1,4):
    sp = sub.add_parser('cmd%i'%i)
    sp.add_argument('--foo%i'%i) # optionals have to be distinct

rest = '--foo 0 cmd2 --foo2 2 cmd3 --foo3 3 cmd1 --foo1 1'.split() # or sys.argv
args = argparse.Namespace()
while rest:
    args,rest =  parser.parse_known_args(rest,namespace=args)
    print args, rest

produces:

Namespace(foo='0', foo2='2') ['cmd3', '--foo3', '3', 'cmd1', '--foo1', '1']
Namespace(foo='0', foo2='2', foo3='3') ['cmd1', '--foo1', '1']
Namespace(foo='0', foo1='1', foo2='2', foo3='3') []

An alternative loop would give each subparser its own namespace. This allows overlap in positionals names.

argslist = []
while rest:
    args,rest =  parser.parse_known_args(rest)
    argslist.append(args)

Answer 2

I came up with the same qustion, and it seems i have got a better answer.

The solution is we shall not simply nest subparser with another subparser, but we can add subparser following with a parser following another subparser.

Code tell you how:

parent_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)                                                                                                  
parent_parser.add_argument('--user', '-u',                                                                                                               
                    default=getpass.getuser(),                                                                                                           
                    help='username')                                                                                                                     
parent_parser.add_argument('--debug', default=False, required=False,                                                                                     
                           action='store_true', dest="debug", help='debug flag')                                                                         
main_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()                                                                                                                  
service_subparsers = main_parser.add_subparsers(title="service",                                                                                         
                    dest="service_command")                                                                                                              
service_parser = service_subparsers.add_parser("first", help="first",                                                                                    
                    parents=[parent_parser])                                                                                                             
action_subparser = service_parser.add_subparsers(title="action",                                                                                         
                    dest="action_command")                                                                                                               
action_parser = action_subparser.add_parser("second", help="second",                                                                                     
                    parents=[parent_parser])                                                                                                             

args = main_parser.parse_args()   

Answer 3

Another package which supports parallel parsers is "declarative_parser".

import argparse
from declarative_parser import Parser, Argument

supported_formats = ['png', 'jpeg', 'gif']

class InputParser(Parser):
    path = Argument(type=argparse.FileType('rb'), optional=False)
    format = Argument(default='png', choices=supported_formats)

class OutputParser(Parser):
    format = Argument(default='jpeg', choices=supported_formats)

class ImageConverter(Parser):
    description = 'This app converts images'

    verbose = Argument(action='store_true')
    input = InputParser()
    output = OutputParser()

parser = ImageConverter()

commands = '--verbose input image.jpeg --format jpeg output --format gif'.split()

namespace = parser.parse_args(commands)

and namespace becomes:

Namespace(
    input=Namespace(format='jpeg', path=<_io.BufferedReader name='image.jpeg'>),
    output=Namespace(format='gif'),
    verbose=True
)

Disclaimer: I am the author. Requires Python 3.6. To install use:

pip3 install declarative_parser

Here is the documentation and here is the repo on GitHub.

Answer 4

Improving on the answer by @mgilson, I wrote a small parsing method which splits argv into parts and puts values of arguments of commands into hierarchy of namespaces:

import sys
import argparse


def parse_args(parser, commands):
    # Divide argv by commands
    split_argv = [[]]
    for c in sys.argv[1:]:
        if c in commands.choices:
            split_argv.append([c])
        else:
            split_argv[-1].append(c)
    # Initialize namespace
    args = argparse.Namespace()
    for c in commands.choices:
        setattr(args, c, None)
    # Parse each command
    parser.parse_args(split_argv[0], namespace=args)  # Without command
    for argv in split_argv[1:]:  # Commands
        n = argparse.Namespace()
        setattr(args, argv[0], n)
        parser.parse_args(argv, namespace=n)
    return args


parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
commands = parser.add_subparsers(title='sub-commands')

cmd1_parser = commands.add_parser('cmd1')
cmd1_parser.add_argument('--foo')

cmd2_parser = commands.add_parser('cmd2')
cmd2_parser.add_argument('--foo')

cmd2_parser = commands.add_parser('cmd3')
cmd2_parser.add_argument('--foo')


args = parse_args(parser, commands)
print(args)

It behaves properly, providing nice argparse help:

For ./test.py --help:

usage: test.py [-h] {cmd1,cmd2,cmd3} ...

optional arguments:
  -h, --help        show this help message and exit

sub-commands:
  {cmd1,cmd2,cmd3}

For ./test.py cmd1 --help:

usage: test.py cmd1 [-h] [--foo FOO]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  --foo FOO

And creates a hierarchy of namespaces containing the argument values:

./test.py cmd1 --foo 3 cmd3 --foo 4
Namespace(cmd1=Namespace(foo='3'), cmd2=None, cmd3=Namespace(foo='4'))

Answer 5

@mgilson has a nice answer to this question. But problem with splitting sys.argv myself is that i lose all the nice help message Argparse generates for the user. So i ended up doing this:

import argparse

## This function takes the 'extra' attribute from global namespace and re-parses it to create separate namespaces for all other chained commands.
def parse_extra (parser, namespace):
  namespaces = []
  extra = namespace.extra
  while extra:
    n = parser.parse_args(extra)
    extra = n.extra
    namespaces.append(n)

  return namespaces

argparser=argparse.ArgumentParser()
subparsers = argparser.add_subparsers(help='sub-command help', dest='subparser_name')

parser_a = subparsers.add_parser('command_a', help = "command_a help")
## Setup options for parser_a

## Add nargs="*" for zero or more other commands
argparser.add_argument('extra', nargs = "*", help = 'Other commands')

## Do similar stuff for other sub-parsers

Now after first parse all chained commands are stored in extra. I reparse it while it is not empty to get all the chained commands and create separate namespaces for them. And i get nicer usage string that argparse generates.