Example script: https://gist.github.com/thingsiplay/ae9a26322cd5830e52b036ab411afd1f
Hi all. I just wanted to share a way to handle a so called advanced help menu, where additional options are listed that are otherwise hidden with regular help. Hidden options should still function. This is just to have less clutter in normal view.
I’ve researched the web to see how people does it, and this is the way I like most so far. If you think this is problematic, please share your thoughts. This is for a commandline terminal application, that could also be automated through a script.
How it works on a high level
Before the ArgumentParser() is called, we check the sys.argv for the trigger option --advanced-help. Depending on this we set a variable to true or false. Then with the setup of the parser after the ArgumenParser() call, we add the --advanced-help option to the list of regular help.
advanced_help = False
for arg in sys.argv:
if arg == "--":
break
if arg == "--advanced-help":
advanced_help = True
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
Continue setting up your options as usual. But for the help description of those you want to exclude when using just regular -h, add an inline if else statement (ternary statement). This statement will put the help description only if advanced_help variable is true, otherwise it puts argparse.SUPPRESS to hide the option. Do this with all the options you want to hide.
parser.add_argument(
"-c",
"--count",
action="store_true",
default=False,
help="print only a count of matching items per list, output file unaffected"
if advanced_help
else argparse.SUPPRESS,
)
At last we need to actually parse what you just setup. For this we need to assign our custom list, that is based on the sys.argv, plus the regular --help option. This way we can use --advanced-help without the need for -h or --help in addition to show any help message.
if advanced_help:
args = parser.parse_args(sys.argv[0:0] + ["--help"] + sys.argv[1:])
else:
args = parser.parse_args()
Run following program once with ./thing.py -h and ./thing.py --advanced-help.
BTW, I’m not saying the way I am going and doing this is the right one. In the end I use additional packages when needed, BeautifulSoup as an example to make life really easier. But that is something specific to that script. Stuff like click and argparse is more than a single script, because when I switch to click then all my future scripts would depend on it. And I feel more comfortable with a solution that is already built-in (stdlib) if its not too bad.
I don’t see click as a required package that I really need. And that is also true for many other packages, such as requests one.
There is an expression,
Linux isn't free it costs you your time. Which might be a counter argument against always using only what is built in.I’m super guilty of reinventing the wheel. But writing overly verbose code isn’t fun either. Never seem to get very far.
Just because someone said it does not make it true and certainly, I don’t have to live after that expression. It kind of is a catch all phrase to justify (or not to justify) everything. It could also be used as an argument for “Vibe Coding” (I hate that term…).
I mean this argument about Linux does not apply to every single application (you apply it right now here to some random Python script). In example Windows, MacOS, Android, nothing is free and costs you your time. The question is, how you want spent your time. And I enjoy writing programs and scripts for various reasons.
I personally think reinventing the wheel is great. Why? It makes you learn and do it. It makes you less dependent. The end result might not be the most polished one, but also if nobody reinvents the wheel, then we have no competition. Sure you should not reinvent everything, there is a balance act to make. And this balance is different for everyone else.