I want to be able to call this script with a single id, a list of ids, a url, or a csv file.

Is there a simple way to express it? Here I’ve only added options to call the script with nothing, a single id or a list of ids. But it already looks too messy for my taste.

def parse_args():
    try:
        if len(sys.argv) == 3:
            # List
            if sys.argv[2].startswith("[") and sys.argv[2].endswith("]"):
                work_ids = sys.argv[2].strip("[").strip("]").split(",")
                download_ao3_fics_and_import_tags(work_ids)
            else: # single work_id
                download_ao3_fic_and_import_tags(sys.argv[2])
        elif len(sys.argv) != 3:
            main()
        else:
            usage()
    except Exception:
        usage()
  • Arthur Besse@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 years ago

    That approach would work if you replace push with append (there is no push method on Python lists) but even for a simple use case, if you’re writing a program for other people to use it is nicer to use an argument parsing library like click to get input validation, useful error messages (eg telling you when a file argument is non existent, or permission denied, etc), and generate output for --help etc.

    • thann@heapoverflow.mlM
      2·
      2 years ago

      nice catch!
      I constantly switch between Js and python, and cant remember the differences lol
      yeah, the --help generation is a very convenient part of the libs.
      I just wrote this to demonstrate the simplest possible answer.