Python Command-Line Scripts: Reference

This is aimed mainly at simple CLI applications in Python. For anything more complex than this, use click¹

Examples use Python 3

Shebang

You can call any python as a regular executable script if you add this line to the top of the file:

#!/usr/bin/env python

Get command-line arguments

This is my-script:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys

# the first argument is the script name itself
print('This script was passed', len(sys.argv)-1, 'arguments.')
print('Arguments:', sys.argv[1:])
print('Argument 1 is: ', sys.argv[1])

Sample call/output

$ ./my-script foo bar
This script was passed 2 arguments.
Arguments: ['foo', 'bar']
Argument 1 is:  foo

1: Here is an example application created with click: jekyll-utils