:mod:`!argparse` --- Parser for command-line options, arguments and subcommands

.. module:: argparse
   :synopsis: Command-line option and argument parsing library.

.. moduleauthor:: Steven Bethard <steven.bethard@gmail.com>

.. sectionauthor:: Steven Bethard <steven.bethard@gmail.com>

.. versionadded:: 3.2

Source code: :source:`Lib/argparse.py`

Note

While :mod:`argparse` is the default recommended standard library module for implementing basic command line applications, authors with more exacting requirements for exactly how their command line applications behave may find it doesn't provide the necessary level of control. Refer to :ref:`choosing-an-argument-parser` for alternatives to consider when argparse doesn't support behaviors that the application requires (such as entirely disabling support for interspersed options and positional arguments, or accepting option parameter values that start with - even when they correspond to another defined option).

Tutorial

This page contains the API reference information. For a more gentle introduction to Python command-line parsing, have a look at the :ref:`argparse tutorial <argparse-tutorial>`.

The :mod:`!argparse` module makes it easy to write user-friendly command-line interfaces. The program defines what arguments it requires, and :mod:`!argparse` will figure out how to parse those out of :data:`sys.argv`. The :mod:`!argparse` module also automatically generates help and usage messages. The module will also issue errors when users give the program invalid arguments.

The :mod:`!argparse` module's support for command-line interfaces is built around an instance of :class:`argparse.ArgumentParser`. It is a container for argument specifications and has options that apply to the parser as whole:

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
                    prog='ProgramName',
                    description='What the program does',
                    epilog='Text at the bottom of help')

The :meth:`ArgumentParser.add_argument` method attaches individual argument specifications to the parser. It supports positional arguments, options that accept values, and on/off flags:

parser.add_argument('filename')           # positional argument
parser.add_argument('-c', '--count')      # option that takes a value
parser.add_argument('-v', '--verbose',
                    action='store_true')  # on/off flag

The :meth:`ArgumentParser.parse_args` method runs the parser and places the extracted data in a :class:`argparse.Namespace` object:

args = parser.parse_args()
print(args.filename, args.count, args.verbose)

Note

If you're looking for a guide about how to upgrade :mod:`optparse` code to :mod:`!argparse`, see :ref:`Upgrading Optparse Code <upgrading-optparse-code>`.

ArgumentParser objects

The following sections describe how each of these are used.

prog

By default, :class:`ArgumentParser` calculates the name of the program to display in help messages depending on the way the Python interpreter was run:

The :func:`base name <os.path.basename>` of sys.argv[0] if a file was passed as argument.
The Python interpreter name followed by sys.argv[0] if a directory or a zipfile was passed as argument.
The Python interpreter name followed by -m followed by the module or package name if the :option:`-m` option was used.

This default is almost always desirable because it will make the help messages match the string that was used to invoke the program on the command line. However, to change this default behavior, another value can be supplied using the prog= argument to :class:`ArgumentParser`:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='myprogram')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: myprogram [-h]

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit

Note that the program name, whether determined from sys.argv[0], from the __main__ module attributes or from the prog= argument, is available to help messages using the %(prog)s format specifier.

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='myprogram')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', help='foo of the %(prog)s program')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: myprogram [-h] [--foo FOO]

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit
 --foo FOO   foo of the myprogram program

.. versionchanged:: 3.14
   The default ``prog`` value now reflects how ``__main__`` was actually executed,
   rather than always being ``os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])``.

usage

By default, :class:`ArgumentParser` calculates the usage message from the arguments it contains. The default message can be overridden with the usage= keyword argument:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', usage='%(prog)s [options]')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', nargs='?', help='foo help')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', nargs='+', help='bar help')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [options]

positional arguments:
 bar          bar help

options:
 -h, --help   show this help message and exit
 --foo [FOO]  foo help

The %(prog)s format specifier is available to fill in the program name in your usage messages.

When a custom usage message is specified for the main parser, you may also want to consider passing the prog argument to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_subparsers` or the prog and the usage arguments to :meth:`~_SubParsersAction.add_parser`, to ensure consistent command prefixes and usage information across subparsers.

description

Most calls to the :class:`ArgumentParser` constructor will use the description= keyword argument. This argument gives a brief description of what the program does and how it works. In help messages, the description is displayed between the command-line usage string and the help messages for the various arguments.

By default, the description will be line-wrapped so that it fits within the given space. To change this behavior, see the formatter_class argument.

epilog

Some programs like to display additional description of the program after the description of the arguments. Such text can be specified using the epilog= argument to :class:`ArgumentParser`:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
...     description='A foo that bars',
...     epilog="And that's how you'd foo a bar")
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: argparse.py [-h]

A foo that bars

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit

And that's how you'd foo a bar

As with the description argument, the epilog= text is by default line-wrapped, but this behavior can be adjusted with the formatter_class argument to :class:`ArgumentParser`.

parents

Sometimes, several parsers share a common set of arguments. Rather than repeating the definitions of these arguments, a single parser with all the shared arguments and passed to parents= argument to :class:`ArgumentParser` can be used. The parents= argument takes a list of :class:`ArgumentParser` objects, collects all the positional and optional actions from them, and adds these actions to the :class:`ArgumentParser` object being constructed:

>>> parent_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)
>>> parent_parser.add_argument('--parent', type=int)

>>> foo_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(parents=[parent_parser])
>>> foo_parser.add_argument('foo')
>>> foo_parser.parse_args(['--parent', '2', 'XXX'])
Namespace(foo='XXX', parent=2)

>>> bar_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(parents=[parent_parser])
>>> bar_parser.add_argument('--bar')
>>> bar_parser.parse_args(['--bar', 'YYY'])
Namespace(bar='YYY', parent=None)

Note that most parent parsers will specify add_help=False. Otherwise, the :class:`ArgumentParser` will see two -h/--help options (one in the parent and one in the child) and raise an error.

Note

You must fully initialize the parsers before passing them via parents=. If you change the parent parsers after the child parser, those changes will not be reflected in the child.

formatter_class

:class:`ArgumentParser` objects allow the help formatting to be customized by specifying an alternate formatting class. Currently, there are four such classes:

:class:`RawDescriptionHelpFormatter` and :class:`RawTextHelpFormatter` give more control over how textual descriptions are displayed. By default, :class:`ArgumentParser` objects line-wrap the description and epilog texts in command-line help messages:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
...     prog='PROG',
...     description='''this description
...         was indented weird
...             but that is okay''',
...     epilog='''
...             likewise for this epilog whose whitespace will
...         be cleaned up and whose words will be wrapped
...         across a couple lines''')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [-h]

this description was indented weird but that is okay

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit

likewise for this epilog whose whitespace will be cleaned up and whose words
will be wrapped across a couple lines

Passing :class:`RawDescriptionHelpFormatter` as formatter_class= indicates that description and epilog are already correctly formatted and should not be line-wrapped:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
...     prog='PROG',
...     formatter_class=argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter,
...     description=textwrap.dedent('''\
...         Please do not mess up this text!
...         --------------------------------
...             I have indented it
...             exactly the way
...             I want it
...         '''))
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [-h]

Please do not mess up this text!
--------------------------------
   I have indented it
   exactly the way
   I want it

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit

:class:`RawTextHelpFormatter` maintains whitespace for all sorts of help text, including argument descriptions. However, multiple newlines are replaced with one. If you wish to preserve multiple blank lines, add spaces between the newlines.

:class:`ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter` automatically adds information about default values to each of the argument help messages:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
...     prog='PROG',
...     formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter)
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', type=int, default=42, help='FOO!')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', nargs='*', default=[1, 2, 3], help='BAR!')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [-h] [--foo FOO] [bar ...]

positional arguments:
 bar         BAR! (default: [1, 2, 3])

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit
 --foo FOO   FOO! (default: 42)

:class:`MetavarTypeHelpFormatter` uses the name of the type argument for each argument as the display name for its values (rather than using the dest as the regular formatter does):

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
...     prog='PROG',
...     formatter_class=argparse.MetavarTypeHelpFormatter)
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', type=int)
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', type=float)
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [-h] [--foo int] float

positional arguments:
  float

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  --foo int

prefix_chars

Most command-line options will use - as the prefix, e.g. -f/--foo. Parsers that need to support different or additional prefix characters, e.g. for options like +f or /foo, may specify them using the prefix_chars= argument to the :class:`ArgumentParser` constructor:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', prefix_chars='-+')
>>> parser.add_argument('+f')
>>> parser.add_argument('++bar')
>>> parser.parse_args('+f X ++bar Y'.split())
Namespace(bar='Y', f='X')

The prefix_chars= argument defaults to '-'. Supplying a set of characters that does not include - will cause -f/--foo options to be disallowed.

fromfile_prefix_chars

Sometimes, when dealing with a particularly long argument list, it may make sense to keep the list of arguments in a file rather than typing it out at the command line. If the fromfile_prefix_chars= argument is given to the :class:`ArgumentParser` constructor, then arguments that start with any of the specified characters will be treated as files, and will be replaced by the arguments they contain. For example:

>>> with open('args.txt', 'w', encoding=sys.getfilesystemencoding()) as fp:
...     fp.write('-f\nbar')
...
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(fromfile_prefix_chars='@')
>>> parser.add_argument('-f')
>>> parser.parse_args(['-f', 'foo', '@args.txt'])
Namespace(f='bar')

Arguments read from a file must by default be one per line (but see also :meth:`~ArgumentParser.convert_arg_line_to_args`) and are treated as if they were in the same place as the original file referencing argument on the command line. So in the example above, the expression ['-f', 'foo', '@args.txt'] is considered equivalent to the expression ['-f', 'foo', '-f', 'bar'].

:class:`ArgumentParser` uses :term:`filesystem encoding and error handler` to read the file containing arguments.

The fromfile_prefix_chars= argument defaults to None, meaning that arguments will never be treated as file references.

.. versionchanged:: 3.12
   :class:`ArgumentParser` changed encoding and errors to read arguments files
   from default (e.g. :func:`locale.getpreferredencoding(False) <locale.getpreferredencoding>`
   and ``"strict"``) to the :term:`filesystem encoding and error handler`.
   Arguments file should be encoded in UTF-8 instead of ANSI Codepage on Windows.

argument_default

Generally, argument defaults are specified either by passing a default to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` or by calling the :meth:`~ArgumentParser.set_defaults` methods with a specific set of name-value pairs. Sometimes however, it may be useful to specify a single parser-wide default for arguments. This can be accomplished by passing the argument_default= keyword argument to :class:`ArgumentParser`. For example, to globally suppress attribute creation on :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` calls, we supply argument_default=SUPPRESS:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(argument_default=argparse.SUPPRESS)
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', nargs='?')
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', '1', 'BAR'])
Namespace(bar='BAR', foo='1')
>>> parser.parse_args([])
Namespace()

allow_abbrev

Normally, when you pass an argument list to the :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` method of an :class:`ArgumentParser`, it :ref:`recognizes abbreviations <prefix-matching>` of long options.

This feature can be disabled by setting allow_abbrev to False:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', allow_abbrev=False)
>>> parser.add_argument('--foobar', action='store_true')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foonley', action='store_false')
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foon'])
usage: PROG [-h] [--foobar] [--foonley]
PROG: error: unrecognized arguments: --foon

.. versionadded:: 3.5

conflict_handler

:class:`ArgumentParser` objects do not allow two actions with the same option string. By default, :class:`ArgumentParser` objects raise an exception if an attempt is made to create an argument with an option string that is already in use:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-f', '--foo', help='old foo help')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', help='new foo help')
Traceback (most recent call last):
 ..
ArgumentError: argument --foo: conflicting option string(s): --foo

Sometimes (e.g. when using parents) it may be useful to simply override any older arguments with the same option string. To get this behavior, the value 'resolve' can be supplied to the conflict_handler= argument of :class:`ArgumentParser`:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', conflict_handler='resolve')
>>> parser.add_argument('-f', '--foo', help='old foo help')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', help='new foo help')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [-h] [-f FOO] [--foo FOO]

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit
 -f FOO      old foo help
 --foo FOO   new foo help

Note that :class:`ArgumentParser` objects only remove an action if all of its option strings are overridden. So, in the example above, the old -f/--foo action is retained as the -f action, because only the --foo option string was overridden.

add_help

By default, :class:`ArgumentParser` objects add an option which simply displays the parser's help message. If -h or --help is supplied at the command line, the :class:`!ArgumentParser` help will be printed.

Occasionally, it may be useful to disable the addition of this help option. This can be achieved by passing False as the add_help= argument to :class:`ArgumentParser`:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', add_help=False)
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', help='foo help')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [--foo FOO]

options:
 --foo FOO  foo help

The help option is typically -h/--help. The exception to this is if the prefix_chars= is specified and does not include -, in which case -h and --help are not valid options. In this case, the first character in prefix_chars is used to prefix the help options:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', prefix_chars='+/')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [+h]

options:
  +h, ++help  show this help message and exit

exit_on_error

Normally, when you pass an invalid argument list to the :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` method of an :class:`ArgumentParser`, it will print a message to :data:`sys.stderr` and exit with a status code of 2.

If the user would like to catch errors manually, the feature can be enabled by setting exit_on_error to False:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(exit_on_error=False)
>>> parser.add_argument('--integers', type=int)
_StoreAction(option_strings=['--integers'], dest='integers', nargs=None, const=None, default=None, type=<class 'int'>, choices=None, help=None, metavar=None)
>>> try:
...     parser.parse_args('--integers a'.split())
... except argparse.ArgumentError:
...     print('Catching an argumentError')
...
Catching an argumentError

.. versionadded:: 3.9

suggest_on_error

By default, when a user passes an invalid argument choice or subparser name, :class:`ArgumentParser` will exit with error info and list the permissible argument choices (if specified) or subparser names as part of the error message.

If the user would like to enable suggestions for mistyped argument choices and subparser names, the feature can be enabled by setting suggest_on_error to True. Note that this only applies for arguments when the choices specified are strings:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Process some integers.', suggest_on_error=True)
>>> parser.add_argument('--action', choices=['sum', 'max'])
>>> parser.add_argument('integers', metavar='N', type=int, nargs='+',
...                     help='an integer for the accumulator')
>>> parser.parse_args(['--action', 'sumn', 1, 2, 3])
tester.py: error: argument --action: invalid choice: 'sumn', maybe you meant 'sum'? (choose from 'sum', 'max')

If you're writing code that needs to be compatible with older Python versions and want to opportunistically use suggest_on_error when it's available, you can set it as an attribute after initializing the parser instead of using the keyword argument:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Process some integers.')
>>> parser.suggest_on_error = True

.. versionadded:: 3.14

The add_argument() method

.. method:: ArgumentParser.add_argument(name or flags..., *, [action], [nargs], \
                           [const], [default], [type], [choices], [required], \
                           [help], [metavar], [dest], [deprecated])

   Define how a single command-line argument should be parsed.  Each parameter
   has its own more detailed description below, but in short they are:

   * `name or flags`_ - Either a name or a list of option strings, e.g. ``'foo'``
     or ``'-f', '--foo'``.

   * action_ - The basic type of action to be taken when this argument is
     encountered at the command line.

   * nargs_ - The number of command-line arguments that should be consumed.

   * const_ - A constant value required by some action_ and nargs_ selections.

   * default_ - The value produced if the argument is absent from the
     command line and if it is absent from the namespace object.

   * type_ - The type to which the command-line argument should be converted.

   * choices_ - A sequence of the allowable values for the argument.

   * required_ - Whether or not the command-line option may be omitted
     (optionals only).

   * help_ - A brief description of what the argument does.

   * metavar_ - A name for the argument in usage messages.

   * dest_ - The name of the attribute to be added to the object returned by
     :meth:`parse_args`.

   * deprecated_ - Whether or not use of the argument is deprecated.

The following sections describe how each of these are used.

name or flags

The :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` method must know whether an optional argument, like -f or --foo, or a positional argument, like a list of filenames, is expected. The first arguments passed to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` must therefore be either a series of flags, or a simple argument name.

For example, an optional argument could be created like:

>>> parser.add_argument('-f', '--foo')

while a positional argument could be created like:

>>> parser.add_argument('bar')

When :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` is called, optional arguments will be identified by the - prefix, and the remaining arguments will be assumed to be positional:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-f', '--foo')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar')
>>> parser.parse_args(['BAR'])
Namespace(bar='BAR', foo=None)
>>> parser.parse_args(['BAR', '--foo', 'FOO'])
Namespace(bar='BAR', foo='FOO')
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', 'FOO'])
usage: PROG [-h] [-f FOO] bar
PROG: error: the following arguments are required: bar

By default, :mod:`!argparse` automatically handles the internal naming and display names of arguments, simplifying the process without requiring additional configuration. As such, you do not need to specify the dest and metavar parameters. The dest parameter defaults to the argument name with underscores _ replacing hyphens - . The metavar parameter defaults to the upper-cased name. For example:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo-bar')
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo-bar', 'FOO-BAR']
Namespace(foo_bar='FOO-BAR')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage:  [-h] [--foo-bar FOO-BAR]

optional arguments:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit
 --foo-bar FOO-BAR

action

:class:`ArgumentParser` objects associate command-line arguments with actions. These actions can do just about anything with the command-line arguments associated with them, though most actions simply add an attribute to the object returned by :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args`. The action keyword argument specifies how the command-line arguments should be handled. The supplied actions are:

'store' - This just stores the argument's value. This is the default action.
'store_const' - This stores the value specified by the const keyword argument; note that the const keyword argument defaults to None. The 'store_const' action is most commonly used with optional arguments that specify some sort of flag. For example:
```
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', action='store_const', const=42)
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo'])
Namespace(foo=42)
```

'store_true' and 'store_false' - These are special cases of 'store_const' used for storing the values True and False respectively. In addition, they create default values of False and True respectively:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', action='store_true')
>>> parser.add_argument('--bar', action='store_false')
>>> parser.add_argument('--baz', action='store_false')
>>> parser.parse_args('--foo --bar'.split())
Namespace(foo=True, bar=False, baz=True)

'append' - This stores a list, and appends each argument value to the list. It is useful to allow an option to be specified multiple times. If the default value is non-empty, the default elements will be present in the parsed value for the option, with any values from the command line appended after those default values. Example usage:
```
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', action='append')
>>> parser.parse_args('--foo 1 --foo 2'.split())
Namespace(foo=['1', '2'])
```

'append_const' - This stores a list, and appends the value specified by the const keyword argument to the list; note that the const keyword argument defaults to None. The 'append_const' action is typically useful when multiple arguments need to store constants to the same list. For example:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--str', dest='types', action='append_const', const=str)
>>> parser.add_argument('--int', dest='types', action='append_const', const=int)
>>> parser.parse_args('--str --int'.split())
Namespace(types=[<class 'str'>, <class 'int'>])

'extend' - This stores a list and appends each item from the multi-value argument list to it. The 'extend' action is typically used with the nargs keyword argument value '+' or '*'. Note that when nargs is None (the default) or '?', each character of the argument string will be appended to the list. Example usage:
```
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument("--foo", action="extend", nargs="+", type=str)
>>> parser.parse_args(["--foo", "f1", "--foo", "f2", "f3", "f4"])
Namespace(foo=['f1', 'f2', 'f3', 'f4'])
```
```
.. versionadded:: 3.8
```
'count' - This counts the number of times a keyword argument occurs. For example, this is useful for increasing verbosity levels:
```
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--verbose', '-v', action='count', default=0)
>>> parser.parse_args(['-vvv'])
Namespace(verbose=3)
```
Note, the default will be None unless explicitly set to 0.
'help' - This prints a complete help message for all the options in the current parser and then exits. By default a help action is automatically added to the parser. See :class:`ArgumentParser` for details of how the output is created.

'version' - This expects a version= keyword argument in the :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` call, and prints version information and exits when invoked:

>>> import argparse
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('--version', action='version', version='%(prog)s 2.0')
>>> parser.parse_args(['--version'])
PROG 2.0

Only actions that consume command-line arguments (e.g. 'store', 'append' or 'extend') can be used with positional arguments.

You may also specify an arbitrary action by passing an :class:`Action` subclass or other object that implements the same interface. The :class:`!BooleanOptionalAction` is available in :mod:`!argparse` and adds support for boolean actions such as --foo and --no-foo:

>>> import argparse
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', action=argparse.BooleanOptionalAction)
>>> parser.parse_args(['--no-foo'])
Namespace(foo=False)

.. versionadded:: 3.9

The recommended way to create a custom action is to extend :class:`Action`, overriding the :meth:`!__call__` method and optionally the :meth:`!__init__` and :meth:`!format_usage` methods. You can also register custom actions using the :meth:`~ArgumentParser.register` method and reference them by their registered name.

An example of a custom action:

>>> class FooAction(argparse.Action):
...     def __init__(self, option_strings, dest, nargs=None, **kwargs):
...         if nargs is not None:
...             raise ValueError("nargs not allowed")
...         super().__init__(option_strings, dest, **kwargs)
...     def __call__(self, parser, namespace, values, option_string=None):
...         print('%r %r %r' % (namespace, values, option_string))
...         setattr(namespace, self.dest, values)
...
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', action=FooAction)
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', action=FooAction)
>>> args = parser.parse_args('1 --foo 2'.split())
Namespace(bar=None, foo=None) '1' None
Namespace(bar='1', foo=None) '2' '--foo'
>>> args
Namespace(bar='1', foo='2')

For more details, see :class:`Action`.

nargs

:class:`ArgumentParser` objects usually associate a single command-line argument with a single action to be taken. The nargs keyword argument associates a different number of command-line arguments with a single action. See also :ref:`specifying-ambiguous-arguments`. The supported values are:

N (an integer). N arguments from the command line will be gathered together into a list. For example:
```
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', nargs=2)
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', nargs=1)
>>> parser.parse_args('c --foo a b'.split())
Namespace(bar=['c'], foo=['a', 'b'])
```
Note that nargs=1 produces a list of one item. This is different from the default, in which the item is produced by itself.

.. index:: single: ? (question mark); in argparse module

'?'. One argument will be consumed from the command line if possible, and produced as a single item. If no command-line argument is present, the value from default will be produced. Note that for optional arguments, there is an additional case - the option string is present but not followed by a command-line argument. In this case the value from const will be produced. Some examples to illustrate this:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', nargs='?', const='c', default='d')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', nargs='?', default='d')
>>> parser.parse_args(['XX', '--foo', 'YY'])
Namespace(bar='XX', foo='YY')
>>> parser.parse_args(['XX', '--foo'])
Namespace(bar='XX', foo='c')
>>> parser.parse_args([])
Namespace(bar='d', foo='d')

One of the more common uses of nargs='?' is to allow optional input and output files:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('infile', nargs='?')
>>> parser.add_argument('outfile', nargs='?')
>>> parser.parse_args(['input.txt', 'output.txt'])
Namespace(infile='input.txt', outfile='output.txt')
>>> parser.parse_args(['input.txt'])
Namespace(infile='input.txt', outfile=None)
>>> parser.parse_args([])
Namespace(infile=None, outfile=None)

.. index:: single: * (asterisk); in argparse module

'*'. All command-line arguments present are gathered into a list. Note that it generally doesn't make much sense to have more than one positional argument with nargs='*', but multiple optional arguments with nargs='*' is possible. For example:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', nargs='*')
>>> parser.add_argument('--bar', nargs='*')
>>> parser.add_argument('baz', nargs='*')
>>> parser.parse_args('a b --foo x y --bar 1 2'.split())
Namespace(bar=['1', '2'], baz=['a', 'b'], foo=['x', 'y'])

.. index:: single: + (plus); in argparse module

'+'. Just like '*', all command-line args present are gathered into a list. Additionally, an error message will be generated if there wasn't at least one command-line argument present. For example:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('foo', nargs='+')
>>> parser.parse_args(['a', 'b'])
Namespace(foo=['a', 'b'])
>>> parser.parse_args([])
usage: PROG [-h] foo [foo ...]
PROG: error: the following arguments are required: foo

If the nargs keyword argument is not provided, the number of arguments consumed is determined by the action. Generally this means a single command-line argument will be consumed and a single item (not a list) will be produced. Actions that do not consume command-line arguments (e.g. 'store_const') set nargs=0.

const

The const argument of :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` is used to hold constant values that are not read from the command line but are required for the various :class:`ArgumentParser` actions. The two most common uses of it are:

When :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` is called with action='store_const' or action='append_const'. These actions add the const value to one of the attributes of the object returned by :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args`. See the action description for examples. If const is not provided to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`, it will receive a default value of None.
When :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` is called with option strings (like -f or --foo) and nargs='?'. This creates an optional argument that can be followed by zero or one command-line arguments. When parsing the command line, if the option string is encountered with no command-line argument following it, the value of const will be assumed to be None instead. See the nargs description for examples.

.. versionchanged:: 3.11
   ``const=None`` by default, including when ``action='append_const'`` or
   ``action='store_const'``.

default

All optional arguments and some positional arguments may be omitted at the command line. The default keyword argument of :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`, whose value defaults to None, specifies what value should be used if the command-line argument is not present. For optional arguments, the default value is used when the option string was not present at the command line:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', default=42)
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', '2'])
Namespace(foo='2')
>>> parser.parse_args([])
Namespace(foo=42)

If the target namespace already has an attribute set, the action default will not overwrite it:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', default=42)
>>> parser.parse_args([], namespace=argparse.Namespace(foo=101))
Namespace(foo=101)

If the default value is a string, the parser parses the value as if it were a command-line argument. In particular, the parser applies any type conversion argument, if provided, before setting the attribute on the :class:`Namespace` return value. Otherwise, the parser uses the value as is:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--length', default='10', type=int)
>>> parser.add_argument('--width', default=10.5, type=int)
>>> parser.parse_args()
Namespace(length=10, width=10.5)

For positional arguments with nargs equal to ? or *, the default value is used when no command-line argument was present:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('foo', nargs='?', default=42)
>>> parser.parse_args(['a'])
Namespace(foo='a')
>>> parser.parse_args([])
Namespace(foo=42)

For required arguments, the default value is ignored. For example, this applies to positional arguments with nargs values other than ? or *, or optional arguments marked as required=True.

Providing default=argparse.SUPPRESS causes no attribute to be added if the command-line argument was not present:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', default=argparse.SUPPRESS)
>>> parser.parse_args([])
Namespace()
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', '1'])
Namespace(foo='1')

type

By default, the parser reads command-line arguments in as simple strings. However, quite often the command-line string should instead be interpreted as another type, such as a :class:`float` or :class:`int`. The type keyword for :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` allows any necessary type-checking and type conversions to be performed.

If the type keyword is used with the default keyword, the type converter is only applied if the default is a string.

The argument to type can be a callable that accepts a single string or the name of a registered type (see :meth:`~ArgumentParser.register`) If the function raises :exc:`ArgumentTypeError`, :exc:`TypeError`, or :exc:`ValueError`, the exception is caught and a nicely formatted error message is displayed. Other exception types are not handled.

Common built-in types and functions can be used as type converters:

.. testcode::

   import argparse
   import pathlib

   parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
   parser.add_argument('count', type=int)
   parser.add_argument('distance', type=float)
   parser.add_argument('street', type=ascii)
   parser.add_argument('code_point', type=ord)
   parser.add_argument('datapath', type=pathlib.Path)

User defined functions can be used as well:

>>> def hyphenated(string):
...     return '-'.join([word[:4] for word in string.casefold().split()])
...
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> _ = parser.add_argument('short_title', type=hyphenated)
>>> parser.parse_args(['"The Tale of Two Cities"'])
Namespace(short_title='"the-tale-of-two-citi')

The :func:`bool` function is not recommended as a type converter. All it does is convert empty strings to False and non-empty strings to True. This is usually not what is desired.

In general, the type keyword is a convenience that should only be used for simple conversions that can only raise one of the three supported exceptions. Anything with more interesting error-handling or resource management should be done downstream after the arguments are parsed.

For example, JSON or YAML conversions have complex error cases that require better reporting than can be given by the type keyword. A :exc:`~json.JSONDecodeError` would not be well formatted and a :exc:`FileNotFoundError` exception would not be handled at all.

Even :class:`~argparse.FileType` has its limitations for use with the type keyword. If one argument uses :class:`~argparse.FileType` and then a subsequent argument fails, an error is reported but the file is not automatically closed. In this case, it would be better to wait until after the parser has run and then use the :keyword:`with`-statement to manage the files.

For type checkers that simply check against a fixed set of values, consider using the choices keyword instead.

choices

Some command-line arguments should be selected from a restricted set of values. These can be handled by passing a sequence object as the choices keyword argument to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`. When the command line is parsed, argument values will be checked, and an error message will be displayed if the argument was not one of the acceptable values:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='game.py')
>>> parser.add_argument('move', choices=['rock', 'paper', 'scissors'])
>>> parser.parse_args(['rock'])
Namespace(move='rock')
>>> parser.parse_args(['fire'])
usage: game.py [-h] {rock,paper,scissors}
game.py: error: argument move: invalid choice: 'fire' (choose from 'rock',
'paper', 'scissors')

Note that inclusion in the choices sequence is checked after any type conversions have been performed, so the type of the objects in the choices sequence should match the type specified.

Any sequence can be passed as the choices value, so :class:`list` objects, :class:`tuple` objects, and custom sequences are all supported.

Use of :class:`enum.Enum` is not recommended because it is difficult to control its appearance in usage, help, and error messages.

Formatted choices override the default metavar which is normally derived from dest. This is usually what you want because the user never sees the dest parameter. If this display isn't desirable (perhaps because there are many choices), just specify an explicit metavar.

required

In general, the :mod:`!argparse` module assumes that flags like -f and --bar indicate optional arguments, which can always be omitted at the command line. To make an option required, True can be specified for the required= keyword argument to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', required=True)
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', 'BAR'])
Namespace(foo='BAR')
>>> parser.parse_args([])
usage: [-h] --foo FOO
: error: the following arguments are required: --foo

As the example shows, if an option is marked as required, :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` will report an error if that option is not present at the command line.

Note

Required options are generally considered bad form because users expect options to be optional, and thus they should be avoided when possible.

help

The help value is a string containing a brief description of the argument. When a user requests help (usually by using -h or --help at the command line), these help descriptions will be displayed with each argument.

The help strings can include various format specifiers to avoid repetition of things like the program name or the argument default. The available specifiers include the program name, %(prog)s and most keyword arguments to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`, e.g. %(default)s, %(type)s, etc.:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='frobble')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', nargs='?', type=int, default=42,
...                     help='the bar to %(prog)s (default: %(default)s)')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: frobble [-h] [bar]

positional arguments:
 bar     the bar to frobble (default: 42)

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit

As the help string supports %-formatting, if you want a literal % to appear in the help string, you must escape it as %%.

:mod:`!argparse` supports silencing the help entry for certain options, by setting the help value to argparse.SUPPRESS:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='frobble')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', help=argparse.SUPPRESS)
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: frobble [-h]

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

metavar

When :class:`ArgumentParser` generates help messages, it needs some way to refer to each expected argument. By default, :class:`!ArgumentParser` objects use the dest value as the "name" of each object. By default, for positional argument actions, the dest value is used directly, and for optional argument actions, the dest value is uppercased. So, a single positional argument with dest='bar' will be referred to as bar. A single optional argument --foo that should be followed by a single command-line argument will be referred to as FOO. An example:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar')
>>> parser.parse_args('X --foo Y'.split())
Namespace(bar='X', foo='Y')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage:  [-h] [--foo FOO] bar

positional arguments:
 bar

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit
 --foo FOO

An alternative name can be specified with metavar:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', metavar='YYY')
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', metavar='XXX')
>>> parser.parse_args('X --foo Y'.split())
Namespace(bar='X', foo='Y')
>>> parser.print_help()
usage:  [-h] [--foo YYY] XXX

positional arguments:
 XXX

options:
 -h, --help  show this help message and exit
 --foo YYY

Note that metavar only changes the displayed name - the name of the attribute on the :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` object is still determined by the dest value.

Different values of nargs may cause the metavar to be used multiple times. Providing a tuple to metavar specifies a different display for each of the arguments:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-x', nargs=2)
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', nargs=2, metavar=('bar', 'baz'))
>>> parser.print_help()
usage: PROG [-h] [-x X X] [--foo bar baz]

options:
 -h, --help     show this help message and exit
 -x X X
 --foo bar baz

dest

Most :class:`ArgumentParser` actions add some value as an attribute of the object returned by :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args`. The name of this attribute is determined by the dest keyword argument of :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`. For positional argument actions, dest is normally supplied as the first argument to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('bar')
>>> parser.parse_args(['XXX'])
Namespace(bar='XXX')

For optional argument actions, the value of dest is normally inferred from the option strings. :class:`ArgumentParser` generates the value of dest by taking the first long option string and stripping away the initial -- string. If no long option strings were supplied, dest will be derived from the first short option string by stripping the initial - character. Any internal - characters will be converted to _ characters to make sure the string is a valid attribute name. The examples below illustrate this behavior:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('-f', '--foo-bar', '--foo')
>>> parser.add_argument('-x', '-y')
>>> parser.parse_args('-f 1 -x 2'.split())
Namespace(foo_bar='1', x='2')
>>> parser.parse_args('--foo 1 -y 2'.split())
Namespace(foo_bar='1', x='2')

dest allows a custom attribute name to be provided:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', dest='bar')
>>> parser.parse_args('--foo XXX'.split())
Namespace(bar='XXX')

deprecated

During a project's lifetime, some arguments may need to be removed from the command line. Before removing them, you should inform your users that the arguments are deprecated and will be removed. The deprecated keyword argument of :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`, which defaults to False, specifies if the argument is deprecated and will be removed in the future. For arguments, if deprecated is True, then a warning will be printed to :data:`sys.stderr` when the argument is used:

>>> import argparse
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='snake.py')
>>> parser.add_argument('--legs', default=0, type=int, deprecated=True)
>>> parser.parse_args([])
Namespace(legs=0)
>>> parser.parse_args(['--legs', '4'])  # doctest: +SKIP
snake.py: warning: option '--legs' is deprecated
Namespace(legs=4)

.. versionadded:: 3.13

Action classes

:class:`!Action` classes implement the Action API, a callable which returns a callable which processes arguments from the command-line. Any object which follows this API may be passed as the action parameter to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument`.

The parse_args() method

.. method:: ArgumentParser.parse_args(args=None, namespace=None)

   Convert argument strings to objects and assign them as attributes of the
   namespace.  Return the populated namespace.

   Previous calls to :meth:`add_argument` determine exactly what objects are
   created and how they are assigned. See the documentation for
   :meth:`!add_argument` for details.

   * args_ - List of strings to parse.  The default is taken from
     :data:`sys.argv`.

   * namespace_ - An object to take the attributes.  The default is a new empty
     :class:`Namespace` object.

Option value syntax

The :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` method supports several ways of specifying the value of an option (if it takes one). In the simplest case, the option and its value are passed as two separate arguments:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-x')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo')
>>> parser.parse_args(['-x', 'X'])
Namespace(foo=None, x='X')
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', 'FOO'])
Namespace(foo='FOO', x=None)

For long options (options with names longer than a single character), the option and value can also be passed as a single command-line argument, using = to separate them:

>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo=FOO'])
Namespace(foo='FOO', x=None)

For short options (options only one character long), the option and its value can be concatenated:

>>> parser.parse_args(['-xX'])
Namespace(foo=None, x='X')

Several short options can be joined together, using only a single - prefix, as long as only the last option (or none of them) requires a value:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-x', action='store_true')
>>> parser.add_argument('-y', action='store_true')
>>> parser.add_argument('-z')
>>> parser.parse_args(['-xyzZ'])
Namespace(x=True, y=True, z='Z')

Invalid arguments

While parsing the command line, :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` checks for a variety of errors, including ambiguous options, invalid types, invalid options, wrong number of positional arguments, etc. When it encounters such an error, it exits and prints the error along with a usage message:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo', type=int)
>>> parser.add_argument('bar', nargs='?')

>>> # invalid type
>>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', 'spam'])
usage: PROG [-h] [--foo FOO] [bar]
PROG: error: argument --foo: invalid int value: 'spam'

>>> # invalid option
>>> parser.parse_args(['--bar'])
usage: PROG [-h] [--foo FOO] [bar]
PROG: error: no such option: --bar

>>> # wrong number of arguments
>>> parser.parse_args(['spam', 'badger'])
usage: PROG [-h] [--foo FOO] [bar]
PROG: error: extra arguments found: badger

Arguments containing `-`

The :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` method attempts to give errors whenever the user has clearly made a mistake, but some situations are inherently ambiguous. For example, the command-line argument -1 could either be an attempt to specify an option or an attempt to provide a positional argument. The :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` method is cautious here: positional arguments may only begin with - if they look like negative numbers and there are no options in the parser that look like negative numbers:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-x')
>>> parser.add_argument('foo', nargs='?')

>>> # no negative number options, so -1 is a positional argument
>>> parser.parse_args(['-x', '-1'])
Namespace(foo=None, x='-1')

>>> # no negative number options, so -1 and -5 are positional arguments
>>> parser.parse_args(['-x', '-1', '-5'])
Namespace(foo='-5', x='-1')

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-1', dest='one')
>>> parser.add_argument('foo', nargs='?')

>>> # negative number options present, so -1 is an option
>>> parser.parse_args(['-1', 'X'])
Namespace(foo=None, one='X')

>>> # negative number options present, so -2 is an option
>>> parser.parse_args(['-2'])
usage: PROG [-h] [-1 ONE] [foo]
PROG: error: no such option: -2

>>> # negative number options present, so both -1s are options
>>> parser.parse_args(['-1', '-1'])
usage: PROG [-h] [-1 ONE] [foo]
PROG: error: argument -1: expected one argument

If you have positional arguments that must begin with - and don't look like negative numbers, you can insert the pseudo-argument '--' which tells :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` that everything after that is a positional argument:

>>> parser.parse_args(['--', '-f'])
Namespace(foo='-f', one=None)

Argument abbreviations (prefix matching)

The :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` method :ref:`by default <allow_abbrev>` allows long options to be abbreviated to a prefix, if the abbreviation is unambiguous (the prefix matches a unique option):

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
>>> parser.add_argument('-bacon')
>>> parser.add_argument('-badger')
>>> parser.parse_args('-bac MMM'.split())
Namespace(bacon='MMM', badger=None)
>>> parser.parse_args('-bad WOOD'.split())
Namespace(bacon=None, badger='WOOD')
>>> parser.parse_args('-ba BA'.split())
usage: PROG [-h] [-bacon BACON] [-badger BADGER]
PROG: error: ambiguous option: -ba could match -badger, -bacon

An error is produced for arguments that could produce more than one options. This feature can be disabled by setting :ref:`allow_abbrev` to False.

Beyond `sys.argv`

Sometimes it may be useful to have an :class:`ArgumentParser` parse arguments other than those of :data:`sys.argv`. This can be accomplished by passing a list of strings to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args`. This is useful for testing at the interactive prompt:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument(
...     'integers', metavar='int', type=int, choices=range(10),
...     nargs='+', help='an integer in the range 0..9')
>>> parser.add_argument(
...     '--sum', dest='accumulate', action='store_const', const=sum,
...     default=max, help='sum the integers (default: find the max)')
>>> parser.parse_args(['1', '2', '3', '4'])
Namespace(accumulate=<built-in function max>, integers=[1, 2, 3, 4])
>>> parser.parse_args(['1', '2', '3', '4', '--sum'])
Namespace(accumulate=<built-in function sum>, integers=[1, 2, 3, 4])

The Namespace object

Simple class used by default by :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` to create an object holding attributes and return it.

This class is deliberately simple, just an :class:`object` subclass with a readable string representation. If you prefer to have dict-like view of the attributes, you can use the standard Python idiom, :func:`vars`:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo')
>>> args = parser.parse_args(['--foo', 'BAR'])
>>> vars(args)
{'foo': 'BAR'}

It may also be useful to have an :class:`ArgumentParser` assign attributes to an already existing object, rather than a new :class:`Namespace` object. This can be achieved by specifying the namespace= keyword argument:

>>> class C:
...     pass
...
>>> c = C()
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--foo')
>>> parser.parse_args(args=['--foo', 'BAR'], namespace=c)
>>> c.foo
'BAR'

Other utilities

Sub-commands

.. method:: ArgumentParser.add_subparsers(*, [title], [description], [prog], \
                                          [parser_class], [action], \
                                          [dest], [required], \
                                          [help], [metavar])

   Many programs split up their functionality into a number of subcommands,
   for example, the ``svn`` program can invoke subcommands like ``svn
   checkout``, ``svn update``, and ``svn commit``.  Splitting up functionality
   this way can be a particularly good idea when a program performs several
   different functions which require different kinds of command-line arguments.
   :class:`ArgumentParser` supports the creation of such subcommands with the
   :meth:`!add_subparsers` method.  The :meth:`!add_subparsers` method is normally
   called with no arguments and returns a special action object.  This object
   has a single method, :meth:`~_SubParsersAction.add_parser`, which takes a
   command name and any :class:`!ArgumentParser` constructor arguments, and
   returns an :class:`!ArgumentParser` object that can be modified as usual.

   Description of parameters:

   * *title* - title for the sub-parser group in help output; by default
     "subcommands" if description is provided, otherwise uses title for
     positional arguments

   * *description* - description for the sub-parser group in help output, by
     default ``None``

   * *prog* - usage information that will be displayed with sub-command help,
     by default the name of the program and any positional arguments before the
     subparser argument

   * *parser_class* - class which will be used to create sub-parser instances, by
     default the class of the current parser (e.g. :class:`ArgumentParser`)

   * action_ - the basic type of action to be taken when this argument is
     encountered at the command line

   * dest_ - name of the attribute under which sub-command name will be
     stored; by default ``None`` and no value is stored

   * required_ - Whether or not a subcommand must be provided, by default
     ``False`` (added in 3.7)

   * help_ - help for sub-parser group in help output, by default ``None``

   * metavar_ - string presenting available subcommands in help; by default it
     is ``None`` and presents subcommands in form {cmd1, cmd2, ..}

   Some example usage::

     >>> # create the top-level parser
     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
     >>> parser.add_argument('--foo', action='store_true', help='foo help')
     >>> subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(help='subcommand help')
     >>>
     >>> # create the parser for the "a" command
     >>> parser_a = subparsers.add_parser('a', help='a help')
     >>> parser_a.add_argument('bar', type=int, help='bar help')
     >>>
     >>> # create the parser for the "b" command
     >>> parser_b = subparsers.add_parser('b', help='b help')
     >>> parser_b.add_argument('--baz', choices=('X', 'Y', 'Z'), help='baz help')
     >>>
     >>> # parse some argument lists
     >>> parser.parse_args(['a', '12'])
     Namespace(bar=12, foo=False)
     >>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', 'b', '--baz', 'Z'])
     Namespace(baz='Z', foo=True)

   Note that the object returned by :meth:`parse_args` will only contain
   attributes for the main parser and the subparser that was selected by the
   command line (and not any other subparsers).  So in the example above, when
   the ``a`` command is specified, only the ``foo`` and ``bar`` attributes are
   present, and when the ``b`` command is specified, only the ``foo`` and
   ``baz`` attributes are present.

   Similarly, when a help message is requested from a subparser, only the help
   for that particular parser will be printed.  The help message will not
   include parent parser or sibling parser messages.  (A help message for each
   subparser command, however, can be given by supplying the ``help=`` argument
   to :meth:`~_SubParsersAction.add_parser` as above.)

   ::

     >>> parser.parse_args(['--help'])
     usage: PROG [-h] [--foo] {a,b} ...

     positional arguments:
       {a,b}   subcommand help
         a     a help
         b     b help

     options:
       -h, --help  show this help message and exit
       --foo   foo help

     >>> parser.parse_args(['a', '--help'])
     usage: PROG a [-h] bar

     positional arguments:
       bar     bar help

     options:
       -h, --help  show this help message and exit

     >>> parser.parse_args(['b', '--help'])
     usage: PROG b [-h] [--baz {X,Y,Z}]

     options:
       -h, --help     show this help message and exit
       --baz {X,Y,Z}  baz help

   The :meth:`add_subparsers` method also supports ``title`` and ``description``
   keyword arguments.  When either is present, the subparser's commands will
   appear in their own group in the help output.  For example::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     >>> subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(title='subcommands',
     ...                                    description='valid subcommands',
     ...                                    help='additional help')
     >>> subparsers.add_parser('foo')
     >>> subparsers.add_parser('bar')
     >>> parser.parse_args(['-h'])
     usage:  [-h] {foo,bar} ...

     options:
       -h, --help  show this help message and exit

     subcommands:
       valid subcommands

       {foo,bar}   additional help

   Furthermore, :meth:`~_SubParsersAction.add_parser` supports an additional
   *aliases* argument,
   which allows multiple strings to refer to the same subparser. This example,
   like ``svn``, aliases ``co`` as a shorthand for ``checkout``::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     >>> subparsers = parser.add_subparsers()
     >>> checkout = subparsers.add_parser('checkout', aliases=['co'])
     >>> checkout.add_argument('foo')
     >>> parser.parse_args(['co', 'bar'])
     Namespace(foo='bar')

   :meth:`~_SubParsersAction.add_parser` supports also an additional
   *deprecated* argument, which allows to deprecate the subparser.

      >>> import argparse
      >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='chicken.py')
      >>> subparsers = parser.add_subparsers()
      >>> run = subparsers.add_parser('run')
      >>> fly = subparsers.add_parser('fly', deprecated=True)
      >>> parser.parse_args(['fly'])  # doctest: +SKIP
      chicken.py: warning: command 'fly' is deprecated
      Namespace()

   .. versionadded:: 3.13

   One particularly effective way of handling subcommands is to combine the use
   of the :meth:`add_subparsers` method with calls to :meth:`set_defaults` so
   that each subparser knows which Python function it should execute.  For
   example::

     >>> # subcommand functions
     >>> def foo(args):
     ...     print(args.x * args.y)
     ...
     >>> def bar(args):
     ...     print('((%s))' % args.z)
     ...
     >>> # create the top-level parser
     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     >>> subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(required=True)
     >>>
     >>> # create the parser for the "foo" command
     >>> parser_foo = subparsers.add_parser('foo')
     >>> parser_foo.add_argument('-x', type=int, default=1)
     >>> parser_foo.add_argument('y', type=float)
     >>> parser_foo.set_defaults(func=foo)
     >>>
     >>> # create the parser for the "bar" command
     >>> parser_bar = subparsers.add_parser('bar')
     >>> parser_bar.add_argument('z')
     >>> parser_bar.set_defaults(func=bar)
     >>>
     >>> # parse the args and call whatever function was selected
     >>> args = parser.parse_args('foo 1 -x 2'.split())
     >>> args.func(args)
     2.0
     >>>
     >>> # parse the args and call whatever function was selected
     >>> args = parser.parse_args('bar XYZYX'.split())
     >>> args.func(args)
     ((XYZYX))

   This way, you can let :meth:`parse_args` do the job of calling the
   appropriate function after argument parsing is complete.  Associating
   functions with actions like this is typically the easiest way to handle the
   different actions for each of your subparsers.  However, if it is necessary
   to check the name of the subparser that was invoked, the ``dest`` keyword
   argument to the :meth:`add_subparsers` call will work::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     >>> subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(dest='subparser_name')
     >>> subparser1 = subparsers.add_parser('1')
     >>> subparser1.add_argument('-x')
     >>> subparser2 = subparsers.add_parser('2')
     >>> subparser2.add_argument('y')
     >>> parser.parse_args(['2', 'frobble'])
     Namespace(subparser_name='2', y='frobble')

   .. versionchanged:: 3.7
      New *required* keyword-only parameter.

   .. versionchanged:: 3.14
      Subparser's *prog* is no longer affected by a custom usage message in
      the main parser.

FileType objects

The :class:`FileType` factory creates objects that can be passed to the type argument of :meth:`ArgumentParser.add_argument`. Arguments that have :class:`FileType` objects as their type will open command-line arguments as files with the requested modes, buffer sizes, encodings and error handling (see the :func:`open` function for more details):

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--raw', type=argparse.FileType('wb', 0))
>>> parser.add_argument('out', type=argparse.FileType('w', encoding='UTF-8'))
>>> parser.parse_args(['--raw', 'raw.dat', 'file.txt'])
Namespace(out=<_io.TextIOWrapper name='file.txt' mode='w' encoding='UTF-8'>, raw=<_io.FileIO name='raw.dat' mode='wb'>)

FileType objects understand the pseudo-argument '-' and automatically convert this into :data:`sys.stdin` for readable :class:`FileType` objects and :data:`sys.stdout` for writable :class:`FileType` objects:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('infile', type=argparse.FileType('r'))
>>> parser.parse_args(['-'])
Namespace(infile=<_io.TextIOWrapper name='<stdin>' encoding='UTF-8'>)

Note

If one argument uses FileType and then a subsequent argument fails, an error is reported but the file is not automatically closed. This can also clobber the output files. In this case, it would be better to wait until after the parser has run and then use the :keyword:`with`-statement to manage the files.

.. versionchanged:: 3.4
   Added the *encodings* and *errors* parameters.

.. deprecated:: 3.14

Argument groups

.. method:: ArgumentParser.add_argument_group(title=None, description=None, *, \
                                              [argument_default], [conflict_handler])

   By default, :class:`ArgumentParser` groups command-line arguments into
   "positional arguments" and "options" when displaying help
   messages. When there is a better conceptual grouping of arguments than this
   default one, appropriate groups can be created using the
   :meth:`!add_argument_group` method::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', add_help=False)
     >>> group = parser.add_argument_group('group')
     >>> group.add_argument('--foo', help='foo help')
     >>> group.add_argument('bar', help='bar help')
     >>> parser.print_help()
     usage: PROG [--foo FOO] bar

     group:
       bar    bar help
       --foo FOO  foo help

   The :meth:`add_argument_group` method returns an argument group object which
   has an :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` method just like a regular
   :class:`ArgumentParser`.  When an argument is added to the group, the parser
   treats it just like a normal argument, but displays the argument in a
   separate group for help messages.  The :meth:`!add_argument_group` method
   accepts *title* and *description* arguments which can be used to
   customize this display::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG', add_help=False)
     >>> group1 = parser.add_argument_group('group1', 'group1 description')
     >>> group1.add_argument('foo', help='foo help')
     >>> group2 = parser.add_argument_group('group2', 'group2 description')
     >>> group2.add_argument('--bar', help='bar help')
     >>> parser.print_help()
     usage: PROG [--bar BAR] foo

     group1:
       group1 description

       foo    foo help

     group2:
       group2 description

       --bar BAR  bar help

   The optional, keyword-only parameters argument_default_ and conflict_handler_
   allow for finer-grained control of the behavior of the argument group. These
   parameters have the same meaning as in the :class:`ArgumentParser` constructor,
   but apply specifically to the argument group rather than the entire parser.

   Note that any arguments not in your user-defined groups will end up back
   in the usual "positional arguments" and "optional arguments" sections.

   .. deprecated-removed:: 3.11 3.14
      Calling :meth:`add_argument_group` on an argument group now raises an
      exception. This nesting was never supported, often failed to work
      correctly, and was unintentionally exposed through inheritance.

   .. deprecated:: 3.14
      Passing prefix_chars_ to :meth:`add_argument_group`
      is now deprecated.

Mutual exclusion

.. method:: ArgumentParser.add_mutually_exclusive_group(required=False)

   Create a mutually exclusive group. :mod:`!argparse` will make sure that only
   one of the arguments in the mutually exclusive group was present on the
   command line::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
     >>> group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
     >>> group.add_argument('--foo', action='store_true')
     >>> group.add_argument('--bar', action='store_false')
     >>> parser.parse_args(['--foo'])
     Namespace(bar=True, foo=True)
     >>> parser.parse_args(['--bar'])
     Namespace(bar=False, foo=False)
     >>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', '--bar'])
     usage: PROG [-h] [--foo | --bar]
     PROG: error: argument --bar: not allowed with argument --foo

   The :meth:`add_mutually_exclusive_group` method also accepts a *required*
   argument, to indicate that at least one of the mutually exclusive arguments
   is required::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
     >>> group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group(required=True)
     >>> group.add_argument('--foo', action='store_true')
     >>> group.add_argument('--bar', action='store_false')
     >>> parser.parse_args([])
     usage: PROG [-h] (--foo | --bar)
     PROG: error: one of the arguments --foo --bar is required

   Note that currently mutually exclusive argument groups do not support the
   *title* and *description* arguments of
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument_group`. However, a mutually exclusive
   group can be added to an argument group that has a title and description.
   For example::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='PROG')
     >>> group = parser.add_argument_group('Group title', 'Group description')
     >>> exclusive_group = group.add_mutually_exclusive_group(required=True)
     >>> exclusive_group.add_argument('--foo', help='foo help')
     >>> exclusive_group.add_argument('--bar', help='bar help')
     >>> parser.print_help()
     usage: PROG [-h] (--foo FOO | --bar BAR)

     options:
       -h, --help  show this help message and exit

     Group title:
       Group description

       --foo FOO   foo help
       --bar BAR   bar help

   .. deprecated-removed:: 3.11 3.14
      Calling :meth:`add_argument_group` or :meth:`add_mutually_exclusive_group`
      on a mutually exclusive group now raises an exception. This nesting was
      never supported, often failed to work correctly, and was unintentionally
      exposed through inheritance.

Parser defaults

.. method:: ArgumentParser.set_defaults(**kwargs)

   Most of the time, the attributes of the object returned by :meth:`parse_args`
   will be fully determined by inspecting the command-line arguments and the argument
   actions.  :meth:`set_defaults` allows some additional
   attributes that are determined without any inspection of the command line to
   be added::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     >>> parser.add_argument('foo', type=int)
     >>> parser.set_defaults(bar=42, baz='badger')
     >>> parser.parse_args(['736'])
     Namespace(bar=42, baz='badger', foo=736)

   Note that parser-level defaults always override argument-level defaults::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     >>> parser.add_argument('--foo', default='bar')
     >>> parser.set_defaults(foo='spam')
     >>> parser.parse_args([])
     Namespace(foo='spam')

   Parser-level defaults can be particularly useful when working with multiple
   parsers.  See the :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_subparsers` method for an
   example of this type.

.. method:: ArgumentParser.get_default(dest)

   Get the default value for a namespace attribute, as set by either
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.add_argument` or by
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.set_defaults`::

     >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     >>> parser.add_argument('--foo', default='badger')
     >>> parser.get_default('foo')
     'badger'

Printing help

In most typical applications, :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` will take care of formatting and printing any usage or error messages. However, several formatting methods are available:

.. method:: ArgumentParser.print_usage(file=None)

   Print a brief description of how the :class:`ArgumentParser` should be
   invoked on the command line.  If *file* is ``None``, :data:`sys.stdout` is
   assumed.

.. method:: ArgumentParser.print_help(file=None)

   Print a help message, including the program usage and information about the
   arguments registered with the :class:`ArgumentParser`.  If *file* is
   ``None``, :data:`sys.stdout` is assumed.

There are also variants of these methods that simply return a string instead of printing it:

.. method:: ArgumentParser.format_usage()

   Return a string containing a brief description of how the
   :class:`ArgumentParser` should be invoked on the command line.

.. method:: ArgumentParser.format_help()

   Return a string containing a help message, including the program usage and
   information about the arguments registered with the :class:`ArgumentParser`.

Partial parsing

.. method:: ArgumentParser.parse_known_args(args=None, namespace=None)

   Sometimes a script may only parse a few of the command-line arguments, passing
   the remaining arguments on to another script or program. In these cases, the
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_known_args` method can be useful.  It works much like
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_args` except that it does not produce an error when
   extra arguments are present.  Instead, it returns a two item tuple containing
   the populated namespace and the list of remaining argument strings.

   ::

      >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
      >>> parser.add_argument('--foo', action='store_true')
      >>> parser.add_argument('bar')
      >>> parser.parse_known_args(['--foo', '--badger', 'BAR', 'spam'])
      (Namespace(bar='BAR', foo=True), ['--badger', 'spam'])

Warning

:ref:`Prefix matching <prefix-matching>` rules apply to :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_known_args`. The parser may consume an option even if it's just a prefix of one of its known options, instead of leaving it in the remaining arguments list.

Customizing file parsing

.. method:: ArgumentParser.convert_arg_line_to_args(arg_line)

   Arguments that are read from a file (see the *fromfile_prefix_chars*
   keyword argument to the :class:`ArgumentParser` constructor) are read one
   argument per line. :meth:`convert_arg_line_to_args` can be overridden for
   fancier reading.

   This method takes a single argument *arg_line* which is a string read from
   the argument file.  It returns a list of arguments parsed from this string.
   The method is called once per line read from the argument file, in order.

   A useful override of this method is one that treats each space-separated word
   as an argument.  The following example demonstrates how to do this::

    class MyArgumentParser(argparse.ArgumentParser):
        def convert_arg_line_to_args(self, arg_line):
            return arg_line.split()

Exiting methods

.. method:: ArgumentParser.exit(status=0, message=None)

   This method terminates the program, exiting with the specified *status*
   and, if given, it prints a *message* to :data:`sys.stderr` before that.
   The user can override this method to handle these steps differently::

    class ErrorCatchingArgumentParser(argparse.ArgumentParser):
        def exit(self, status=0, message=None):
            if status:
                raise Exception(f'Exiting because of an error: {message}')
            exit(status)

.. method:: ArgumentParser.error(message)

   This method prints a usage message, including the *message*, to
   :data:`sys.stderr` and terminates the program with a status code of 2.

Intermixed parsing

.. method:: ArgumentParser.parse_intermixed_args(args=None, namespace=None)

.. method:: ArgumentParser.parse_known_intermixed_args(args=None, namespace=None)

   A number of Unix commands allow the user to intermix optional arguments with
   positional arguments.  The :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_intermixed_args`
   and :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_known_intermixed_args` methods
   support this parsing style.

   These parsers do not support all the :mod:`!argparse` features, and will raise
   exceptions if unsupported features are used.  In particular, subparsers,
   and mutually exclusive groups that include both
   optionals and positionals are not supported.

   The following example shows the difference between
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_known_args` and
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_intermixed_args`: the former returns ``['2',
   '3']`` as unparsed arguments, while the latter collects all the positionals
   into ``rest``.  ::

      >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
      >>> parser.add_argument('--foo')
      >>> parser.add_argument('cmd')
      >>> parser.add_argument('rest', nargs='*', type=int)
      >>> parser.parse_known_args('doit 1 --foo bar 2 3'.split())
      (Namespace(cmd='doit', foo='bar', rest=[1]), ['2', '3'])
      >>> parser.parse_intermixed_args('doit 1 --foo bar 2 3'.split())
      Namespace(cmd='doit', foo='bar', rest=[1, 2, 3])

   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_known_intermixed_args` returns a two item tuple
   containing the populated namespace and the list of remaining argument strings.
   :meth:`~ArgumentParser.parse_intermixed_args` raises an error if there are any
   remaining unparsed argument strings.

   .. versionadded:: 3.7

Registering custom types or actions

.. method:: ArgumentParser.register(registry_name, value, object)

   Sometimes it's desirable to use a custom string in error messages to provide
   more user-friendly output. In these cases, :meth:`!register` can be used to
   register custom actions or types with a parser and allow you to reference the
   type by their registered name instead of their callable name.

   The :meth:`!register` method accepts three arguments - a *registry_name*,
   specifying the internal registry where the object will be stored (e.g.,
   ``action``, ``type``), *value*, which is the key under which the object will
   be registered, and object, the callable to be registered.

   The following example shows how to register a custom type with a parser::

      >>> import argparse
      >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
      >>> parser.register('type', 'hexadecimal integer', lambda s: int(s, 16))
      >>> parser.add_argument('--foo', type='hexadecimal integer')
      _StoreAction(option_strings=['--foo'], dest='foo', nargs=None, const=None, default=None, type='hexadecimal integer', choices=None, required=False, help=None, metavar=None, deprecated=False)
      >>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', '0xFA'])
      Namespace(foo=250)
      >>> parser.parse_args(['--foo', '1.2'])
      usage: PROG [-h] [--foo FOO]
      PROG: error: argument --foo: invalid 'hexadecimal integer' value: '1.2'

Exceptions

.. exception:: ArgumentError

   An error from creating or using an argument (optional or positional).

   The string value of this exception is the message, augmented with
   information about the argument that caused it.

.. exception:: ArgumentTypeError

   Raised when something goes wrong converting a command line string to a type.

Guides and Tutorials

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1

   ../howto/argparse.rst
   ../howto/argparse-optparse.rst

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:mod:`!argparse` --- Parser for command-line options, arguments and subcommands

ArgumentParser objects

prog

usage

description

epilog

parents

formatter_class

prefix_chars

fromfile_prefix_chars

argument_default

allow_abbrev

conflict_handler

add_help

exit_on_error

suggest_on_error

The add_argument() method

name or flags

action

nargs

const

default

type

choices

required

help

metavar

dest

deprecated

Action classes

The parse_args() method

Option value syntax

Invalid arguments

Arguments containing -

Argument abbreviations (prefix matching)

Beyond sys.argv

The Namespace object

Other utilities

Sub-commands

FileType objects

Argument groups

Mutual exclusion

Parser defaults

Printing help

Partial parsing

Customizing file parsing

Exiting methods

Intermixed parsing

Registering custom types or actions

Exceptions

Arguments containing `-`

Beyond `sys.argv`