Passing parameters at the command line (New Python User)

[Ben Finney]

cjt22 at bath.ac.uk writes:

> I have never used Python to pass in arguments at the command line so
> any help would be much appreciated.

Your 'main()' approach is good. I'd rather have the function require
an 'argv' parameter, and have the default set only in the 'if __name__
== "__main__":' block, since that fits my ideas better about the
defaults.

    def main(argv):
        parse_commandline(argv)
        do_cool_stuff()

    if __name__ == "__main__":
        from sys import argv
        main(argv)

I also tend to catch SystemExit in the function, so the exit code can
be returned instead of raised; but that's outside the scope of this
thread.

For anything more advanced than unconditionally grabbing arguments in
sequence from the command line, you should investigate the 'optparse'
module <URL:http://docs.python.org/lib/module-optparse> from the
standard library.

-- 
 \                         "Holy knit one purl two, Batman!"  -- Robin |
  `\                                                                   |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney