docopt 0.6.0

docopt creates beautiful command-line interfaces

Video introduction to docopt: PyCon UK 2012: Create *beautiful* command-line interfaces with Python

New in version 0.6.0:

• New argument options_first, disallows interspersing options and arguments. If you supply options_first=True to docopt, it will interpret all arguments as positional arguments after first positional argument.

• If option with argument could be repeated, its default value will be interpreted as space-separated list. E.g. with [default: ./here ./there] will be interpreted as ['./here', './there'].

Breaking changes:

• Meaning of [options] shortcut slightly changed. Previously it ment “any known option”. Now it means “any option not in usage-pattern”. This avoids the situation when an option is allowed to be repeated unintentionaly.

• argv is None by default, not sys.argv[1:]. This allows docopt to always use the latest sys.argv, not sys.argv during import time.

Isn’t it awesome how optparse and argparse generate help messages based on your code?!

Hell no! You know what’s awesome? It’s when the option parser is generated based on the beautiful help message that you write yourself! This way you don’t need to write this stupid repeatable parser-code, and instead can write only the help message–the way you want it.

docopt helps you create most beautiful command-line interfaces easily:

"""Naval Fate.

Usage:
  naval_fate.py ship new <name>...
  naval_fate.py ship <name> move <x> <y> [--speed=<kn>]
  naval_fate.py ship shoot <x> <y>
  naval_fate.py mine (set|remove) <x> <y> [--moored | --drifting]
  naval_fate.py (-h | --help)
  naval_fate.py --version

Options:
  -h --help     Show this screen.
  --version     Show version.
  --speed=<kn>  Speed in knots [default: 10].
  --moored      Moored (anchored) mine.
  --drifting    Drifting mine.

"""
from docopt import docopt


if __name__ == '__main__':
    arguments = docopt(__doc__, version='Naval Fate 2.0')
    print(arguments)

Beat that! The option parser is generated based on the docstring above that is passed to docopt function. docopt parses the usage pattern ("Usage: ...") and option descriptions (lines starting with dash “-”) and ensures that the program invocation matches the usage pattern; it parses options, arguments and commands based on that. The basic idea is that a good help message has all necessary information in it to make a parser.

Also, PEP 257 recommends putting help message in the module docstrings.

Installation

Use pip or easy_install:

pip install docopt==0.6.0

Alternatively, you can just drop docopt.py file into your project–it is self-contained.

docopt is tested with Python 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3 and PyPy.

API

from docopt import docopt

docopt(doc, argv=None, help=True, version=None, options_first=False)

docopt takes 1 required and 4 optional arguments:

• doc could be a module docstring (__doc__) or some other string that contains a help message that will be parsed to create the option parser. The simple rules of how to write such a help message are given in next sections. Here is a quick example of such a string:

"""Usage: my_program.py [-hso FILE] [--quiet | --verbose] [INPUT ...]

-h --help    show this
-s --sorted  sorted output
-o FILE      specify output file [default: ./test.txt]
--quiet      print less text
--verbose    print more text

"""

• argv is an optional argument vector; by default docopt uses the argument vector passed to your program (sys.argv[1:]). Alternatively you can supply a list of strings like ['--verbose', '-o', 'hai.txt'].

• help, by default True, specifies whether the parser should automatically print the help message (supplied as doc) and terminate, in case -h or --help option is encountered (options should exist in usage pattern, more on that below). If you want to handle -h or --help options manually (as other options), set help=False.

• version, by default None, is an optional argument that specifies the version of your program. If supplied, then, (assuming --version option is mentioned in usage pattern) when parser encounters the --version option, it will print the supplied version and terminate. version could be any printable object, but most likely a string, e.g. "2.1.0rc1".

  Note, when docopt is set to automatically handle -h, --help and --version options, you still need to mention them in usage pattern for this to work. Also, for your users to know about them.

• options_first, by default False. If set to True will disallow mixing options and positional argument. I.e. after first positional argument, all arguments will be interpreted as positional even if the look like options. This can be used for strict compatibility with POSIX, or if you want to dispatch your arguments to other programs.

The return value is a simple dictionary with options, arguments and commands as keys, spelled exactly like in your help message. Long versions of options are given priority. For example, if you invoke the top example as:

naval_fate.py ship Guardian move 100 150 --speed=15

the return dictionary will be:

{'--drifting': False,    'mine': False,
 '--help': False,        'move': True,
 '--moored': False,      'new': False,
 '--speed': '15',        'remove': False,
 '--version': False,     'set': False,
 '<name>': ['Guardian'], 'ship': True,
 '<x>': '100',           'shoot': False,
 '<y>': '150'}

Help message format

Help message consists of 2 parts:

• Usage pattern, e.g.:

  Usage: my_program.py [-hso FILE] [--quiet | --verbose] [INPUT ...]

• Option descriptions, e.g.:

  -h --help    show this
  -s --sorted  sorted output
  -o FILE      specify output file [default: ./test.txt]
  --quiet      print less text
  --verbose    print more text

Their format is described below; other text is ignored.

"""Usage: my_program.py

"""

"""Usage: my_program.py FILE
          my_program.py COUNT FILE

"""

Usage: my_program.py [-v | -vv | -vvv]

Usage: my_program.py <file> <file> --path=<path>...

Development

We would love to hear what you think about docopt on our issues page

Make pull requrests, report bugs, suggest ideas and discuss docopt. You can also drop a line directly to <vladimir@keleshev.com>.

Porting docopt to other languages

We think docopt is so good, we want to share it beyond the Python community!

The follosing ports are available:

• Ruby port

• CoffeeScript port

• Lua port

• PHP port

But you can always create a port for your favorite language! You are encouraged to use the Python version as a reference implementation. A Language-agnostic test suite is bundled with Python implementation.

Porting discussion is on issues page.

Changelog

docopt follows semantic versioning. The first release with stable API will be 1.0.0 (soon). Until then, you are encouraged to specify explicitly the version in your dependency tools, e.g.:

pip install docopt==0.6.0

• 0.6.0 options_first parameter. Breaking changes: Corrected [options] meaning. argv defaults to None.

• 0.5.0 Repeated options/commands are counted or accumulated into a list.

• 0.4.2 Bugfix release.

• 0.4.0 Option descriptions become optional, support for “--” and “-” commands.

• 0.3.0 Support for (sub)commands like git remote add. Introduce [options] shortcut for any options. Breaking changes: docopt returns dictionary.

• 0.2.0 Usage pattern matching. Positional arguments parsing based on usage patterns. Breaking changes: docopt returns namespace (for arguments), not list. Usage pattern is formalized.

• 0.1.0 Initial release. Options-parsing only (based on options description).