generic-parser

Generic Parser

The package provides an all-around parser for arguments and config-files. The creation of the arguments is similar to the ones from argparse, but the input can then be either from command line, a config file or directly from python.

See the API documentation for details.

Installing

Installation is easily done via pip. The package is then used as generic_parser.

python -m pip install generic-parser

One can also install in a conda environment via the conda-forge channel with:

conda install -c conda-forge generic_parser

Example Usage:

Content of myscript.py

from generic_parser import entrypoint, EntryPointParameters


def get_arguments():
    args = EntryPointParameters()
    args.add_parameter(name="first",
                       flags=["-f", "--first"],
                       help="First Parameter, an int",
                       choices=[1, 2, 3],
                       type=int,
                       required=True,
                       )
    args.add_parameter(name="second",
                       flags=["-s", "--second"],
                       help="Second Parameter, a string",
                       type=str,
                       default="default",
                       required=False,
                       )
    return args


@entrypoint(get_arguments())
def main(opt, unknown):
    print(opt.first == 1)
    print(opt.second == "default")


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Commandline

Calling that script with python myscript.py -f 1 -s "test" will result in:

True
False

It is assumed, that this is the standard mode of operation for your functions.

Config File

Further, one can also use a config file config.ini containing:

[Section]
first = 2
second = "Hello"

and run the script with python myscript.py --entry_cfg config.ini leading to

False
False

Config files are very useful if you want to rerun your code with the same or similar parameters. Especially the declaration of a [DEFAULT] section can be helpful. For further information about config files, check the python Config Parser.

Python

Or call the function directly from python code:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main(first=1, second="World")

True
False

This is incredibly helpful if one wants to write python-wrappers around entrypoint-functions, and does not want to resort to commandline calls from python.

Note that also in this case all variables are validated, courtesy of the dict_parser. dict_parser provides even multi-level dictionary checking functionality, which is not used in the Entrypoint, but can be handy in other use-cases.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details