How can I store user input from command line in Python?

Question

I am trying to run a script with up to 8 arguments. For example:

pythonscript.py hello there howdy do argument5 argument6 argument7 argument8

I want to store arguments 5-8 in an array, however, if arguments 5-8 are not entered, I want a default value assigned to a variable. I don't care if it's a tuple, the data in the input will not change.

I have this so far, but can't get it to work. What am I missing?

import sys

try:
    values = (sys.argv[5],sys.argv[6],sys.argv[7],sys.argv[8])
except:
    values ='127.0.0.1'

JAB · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-10 19:55:40Z

1

Here's another way you could do it that doesn't require you to explicitly state the various elements of sys.argv:

import sys

if len(sys.argv) > 5:
    values = sys.argv[5:]
else:
    values = '127.0.0.1'

This takes advantage of Python's slicing syntax.

answered Jun 10, 2011 at 19:55

JAB

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Comments

serverhorror · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-10 18:28:47Z

0

I don't quite see what's wrong here:

>>> import sys
>>> 
>>> try:
...     values = (sys.argv[5],sys.argv[6],sys.argv[7],sys.argv[8])
... except:
...     values ='127.0.0.1'
... 
>>> values
'127.0.0.1'

Please note that this is run from the python shell so the sys.argv aren't what you get if run from a script.

Could you post the error message, or data you get and the data you expect?

answered Jun 10, 2011 at 18:28

serverhorror

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1 Comment

user63019 Over a year ago

Bah! I'm a dummy. I was trying to work on a variable in a function, but was doing it out of sequence. Because I wasn't exiting the script gracefully on error, I wasn't able to print the contents of the array to confirm it was populating, so I assumed that my issue was the array population.

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