Nicer command line parse python

Question

Using argparse, I have created a small script that contains a command line parser for my analysis program which is part of a self made python package. It works perfectly, but I don't really like how to control it.

This is how the code looks in the script itself

def myAnalysis():

    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='''
        lala''')
    parser.add_argument('-d', '--data',help='')
    parser.add_argument('-e', '--option_1', help='', default=False, required=False)
    parser.add_argument('-f', '--option_2', help='', default=False, required=False)


    # combine parsed arguments
    args = parser.parse_args()code here

Additional to this there is some more in the setup file of the analysis package

entry_points={
          'console_scripts': [
              'py_analysis = edit.__main__:myAnalysis'
          ]

As I said, this works without any problems. To analyze some data I have to use

py_analysis --data path_to_data_file

Sometimes, I need some of the options. For this it may look loke

py_analysis --data path_to_data_file --option_1 True --option_2 True

In my personal taste, this is kind of ugly. I would prefer something like

py_analysis path_to_data_file --option_1 --option_2

I am pretty sure this is possible. I just don't know how

Answer 1

Use store_true action

parser.add_argument('-e', '--option_1', help='', default=False, action ='store_true')

Then just adding to command line --option_1 will set its value to True .

Answer 2

To have a positional argument instead of an option, replace:

parser.add_argument('-d', '--data',help='')

by:

parser.add_argument('data_file', help='')