parsing command line arguments with long and short flags code example

Example 1: python argparse file argument

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('file', type=argparse.FileType('r'))
args = parser.parse_args()

print(args.file.readlines())

Example 2: argparse list of options

parser.add_argument('--list',
                    default='all',
                    const='all',
                    nargs='?',
                    choices=['servers', 'storage', 'all'],
                    help='list servers, storage, or both (default: %(default)s)')

Example 3: bash argument parsing

cat >/tmp/demo-space-separated.sh <<'EOF'
#!/bin/bash

POSITIONAL=()
while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]
do
key="$1"

case $key in
    -e|--extension)
    EXTENSION="$2"
    shift # past argument
    shift # past value
    ;;
    -s|--searchpath)
    SEARCHPATH="$2"
    shift # past argument
    shift # past value
    ;;
    -l|--lib)
    LIBPATH="$2"
    shift # past argument
    shift # past value
    ;;
    --default)
    DEFAULT=YES
    shift # past argument
    ;;
    *)    # unknown option
    POSITIONAL+=("$1") # save it in an array for later
    shift # past argument
    ;;
esac
done
set -- "${POSITIONAL[@]}" # restore positional parameters

echo "FILE EXTENSION  = ${EXTENSION}"
echo "SEARCH PATH     = ${SEARCHPATH}"
echo "LIBRARY PATH    = ${LIBPATH}"
echo "DEFAULT         = ${DEFAULT}"
echo "Number files in SEARCH PATH with EXTENSION:" $(ls -1 "${SEARCHPATH}"/*."${EXTENSION}" | wc -l)
if [[ -n $1 ]]; then
    echo "Last line of file specified as non-opt/last argument:"
    tail -1 "$1"
fi
EOF

chmod +x /tmp/demo-space-separated.sh

/tmp/demo-space-separated.sh -e conf -s /etc -l /usr/lib /etc/hosts