How to handle missing arguments in argparse?

Question

I need to do the following:

if there weren't argument's for script variable test == False
elif there was argument -t or --test variable test == True
else there were another arguments get them as string and pass to third code

Now I got an error:

# ./cli something
usage: cli [-t]
cli: error: unrecognized arguments: something

My code for first 2 steps:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)
parser.add_argument('-t', '--test', action="store_true")
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.test is True:
    intro = None

Never use is instead of == to test for equality: don't say if args.test is True: You can just say if args.test — smci
– smci, Commented Apr 9, 2015 at 11:33
What should belong to -t in the following case: cli -t first second? first and second? — RedX
– RedX, Commented Apr 9, 2015 at 11:53
You if conditions aren't clear. Show us several intended usage cases, and what you want the args namespace to look like. — hpaulj
– hpaulj, Commented Apr 9, 2015 at 16:46
@smci. Always use is for singletons, like None. Agree with your second statement though. — Mad Physicist
– Mad Physicist, Commented Dec 17, 2018 at 3:26

Wolph · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-09 11:01:23Z

2

Within argparse you need that as a separate parameter, for example:

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)
parser.add_argument('-t', '--test', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('params', nargs='+')
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.test is True:
    intro = None
elif args.params:
    pass  # process the params here
else:
    pass  # no params whatsoever

answered Apr 9, 2015 at 11:01

Wolph

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