[Python-Dev] Python 2.7b1 and argparse's version action (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Mon Apr 19 01:35:41 CEST 2010

Steven Bethard wrote:

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 3:57 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

Steven Bethard wrote:

By the way, we could simplify the typical addargument usage by adding "show program's version number and exit" as the default help for the 'version' action. Then you should just write:

parser.addargument('--version', action='version', version='') With that change, I would have no problem with the current argparse behaviour (since doing it this way makes it very easy for people to add a "-V" shortcut if they want one). Probably this should happen regardless of the outcome of the constructor argument. The only reason it wasn't already there is that I hadn't thought of it. ;-)

Crazy thought... would it make sense to have the following implicitly use "--version" as the option flag:

parser.add_argument(action='version', version='

')

There are two things about the explicit '--version' that bother me:

  1. It reduces the automatic provision of "standard" option spellings
  2. The repetition in reading/writing 'version' 3 times is kind of annoying

(Probably a bad idea, since adding "-V" would mean having to add "--version" as well, but figured it was worth mentioning).

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

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