[Python-3000] Move argv[0]? (Re: Unicode and OS strings) (original) (raw)

Thomas Wouters thomas at python.org
Wed Sep 19 03:40:40 CEST 2007

On 9/16/07, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

Thomas Wouters wrote: > If you want to put more meaning in the argv list, use an option > parser. I want to put less meaning in it, not more. :-)

Then why are you discriminating against argv[0]? It's just another member of the argv list the OS gives us.

And using an argument parser is often overkill for

simple programs.

So is trying to "fix" this non-issue.

The actual meaning of each element depends entirely on the > program that's started. For Python-the-language, there isn't any > difference between them.

So in your Python programs, you're quite happy to write for arg in sys.argv: process(arg) and not care about what this does with argv[0]?

No. I'm quite happy to realize the argv list is what the shell executed. I'm also quite happy to use a proper option parser even for my simple programs. It adds useful defaults even if I didn't think I'd ever use them.

I hardly see how one can claim that there's

"no difference" between argv[0] and the rest for practical purposes.

The only meaning is by accident of position. For most programs, the very same thing goes for the rest of the arguments: 'mv foo bar' assigns a different meaning to 'foo' than it does to 'bar'. Notice how sys.argvmatches what the user typed, including sys.argv[0].

-- Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org>

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