Python: Argparse with list of lists

Question

Minimum verifiable example:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='...')
parser.add_argument('-f','--file', type=str, nargs='+', help='file list')

args = parser.parse_args()

print(args.sparse[:])

And the idea is that I call this as:

python my_script.py -f f1 f2 f3 -f some_other_file1 some_other_file2 ...

And the output would be:

[ [ f1 f2 f3 ] [ some_other_file1 some_other_file2 ] ]

However, in this case, all that is printed out is:

 [ some_other_file1 some_other_file2 ]

Possible duplicate of Using the same option multiple times in Python's argparse — Aurora Wang
– Aurora Wang, Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 20:16

Michael H. · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-10 20:17:42Z

22

action='append' may be what you want:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='...')
parser.add_argument('-f','--file', type=str, nargs='+', action='append', 
help='file list')

args = parser.parse_args()

print(args.file)

will give

$ python my_script.py -f 1 2 3 -f 4 5
[['1', '2', '3'], ['4', '5']]

answered Dec 10, 2018 at 20:17

Michael H.

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1 Comment

Mathy Over a year ago

This however does not work anymore of one only provides one list, right?

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