cs-cmdutils 20250724

Convenience functions for working with the cmd stdlib module, the BaseCommand class for constructing command line programmes, and other command line related stuff.

Convenience functions for working with the cmd stdlib module, the BaseCommand class for constructing command line programmes, and other command line related stuff.

Latest release 20250724:

• BaseCommandOptions: new empty post_init so that subclasses can call super().post_init() unconditionally.
• New cli_datetime to parse a CLI supplied datetime specification, accepts ISO8601.

This module provides the following main items:

• BaseCommand: a base class for creating command line programmes with easier setup and usage than libraries like optparse or argparse
• @popopts: a decorator which works with BaseCommand subcommand methods to parse their command line options
• @docmd: a decorator for command methods of a cmd.Cmd class providing better quality of service

Editorial: why not arparse? I find the whole argparse add_argument thing very cumbersome and hard to use and remember. Also, when incorrectly invoked an argparse command line prints the help/usage messgae and aborts the whole programme with SystemExit.

Short summary:

• BaseCommand: A base class for handling nestable command lines.
• BaseCommandCmd: A cmd.Cmd subclass used to provide interactive use of a command's subcommands.
• BaseCommandOptions: A base class for the BaseCommand options object.
• cli_datetime: Parse an ISO8601 date into a datetime. Being for the command line, this assumes the local timezone if a UTC offset is not specified.
• docmd: Decorator for cmd.Cmd subclass methods to supply some basic quality of service.
• OptionSpec: A class to support parsing an option value.
• popopts: A decorator to parse command line options from a cmd_method's argv and update self.options.
• qprint: Call print() if not options.quiet. This is a compatibility shim for qvprint() with verbose=not quiet and quiet=False.
• qvprint: Call print() if options.verbose and not options.quiet.
• split_usage: Extract a "Usage:"paragraph from a docstring and return a 3-tuple of (preusage,usage,postusage).
• SubCommand: An implementation for a subcommand.
• vprint: Call print() if options.verbose. This is a compatibility shim for qvprint() with quiet=False.

Module contents:

• class BaseCommand: A base class for handling nestable command lines.

  This class provides the basic parse and dispatch mechanisms for command lines. To implement a command line one instantiates a subclass of BaseCommand:

  class MyCommand(BaseCommand):
      """ My command to do something. """
  

  and provides either a main method if the command has no subcommands or a suite of cmd_subcommand methods, one per subcommand.

  Running a command is done by:

  MyCommand(argv).run()
  

  Modules which implement a command line mode generally look like this:

  ... imports etc ...
  def main(argv=None, **run_kw):
      """ The command line mode.
      """
      return MyCommand(argv).run(**run_kw)
  ... other code ...
  class MyCommand(BaseCommand):
  ... other code ...
  if __name__ == '__main__':
      sys.exit(main(sys.argv))
  

  Instances have a self.options attribute on which optional modes are set, avoiding conflict with the attributes of self.

  The self.options object is an instance of the class' Options class. The default comes from BaseCommand.Options (aka BaseCommandOptions) but classes with additional command line options will usually provide their own subclass:

  class MyCommand(BaseCommand):
  
      @dataclass
      class Options(BaseCommand.Options):
          extra_mode : str = None
          some_flag : bool = False
  
          # extend the common options for the new fields
          COMMON_OPT_SPECS = dict(
              **BaseCommand.Options.COMMON_OPT_SPECS,
              mode_=('extra_mode', 'The extra mode to do something.'),
              flag='some_flag',
          )
  

  This adds an additional --mode mode and a --flag command line option which affects the fields of self.options and updates the automaticly generated usage messages accordingly. See the documentation for BaseCommandOptions.popopts for explaination of the COMMON_OPT_SPECS values.

  Subclasses with no subcommands generally just implement a main(argv) method.

  Subclasses with subcommands should implement a cmd_subcommand(argv) instance method for each subcommand. If a subcommand is itself implemented using BaseCommand then it can be a simple attribute:

  cmd_subthing = SubThingCommand
  

  Returning to methods, if there is a paragraph in the method docstring commencing with Usage: then that paragraph is incorporated into the main usage message automatically.

  Example:

  @popopts(l='long_mode')
  def cmd_ls(self, argv):
      """ Usage: {cmd} [-l] [paths...]
            Emit a listing for the named paths.
  
          Further docstring non-usage information here.
      """
      ... do the "ls" subcommand ...
      ... with use of self.options.long_mode as needed ...
  

  The subclass is customised by overriding the following methods:

  • run_context(): a context manager to provide setup or teardown actions to occur before and after the command implementation respectively, such as to open and close a database.
  • cmd_subcmd(argv): if the command line options are followed by an argument whose value is subcmd, then the method cmd_subcmd(subcmd_argv) will be called where subcmd_argv contains the command line arguments following subcmd.
  • main(argv): if there are no cmd_subcmd methods then method main(argv) will be called where argv contains the command line arguments.A base class for handling nestable command lines.

  This class provides the basic parse and dispatch mechanisms for command lines. To implement a command line one instantiates a subclass of BaseCommand:

  class MyCommand(BaseCommand):
      """ My command to do something. """
  

  and provides either a main method if the command has no subcommands or a suite of cmd_subcommand methods, one per subcommand.

  Running a command is done by:

  MyCommand(argv).run()
  

  Modules which implement a command line mode generally look like this:

  ... imports etc ...
  def main(argv=None, **run_kw):
      """ The command line mode.
      """
      return MyCommand(argv).run(**run_kw)
  ... other code ...
  class MyCommand(BaseCommand):
  ... other code ...
  if __name__ == '__main__':
      sys.exit(main(sys.argv))
  

  Instances have a self.options attribute on which optional modes are set, avoiding conflict with the attributes of self.

  The self.options object is an instance of the class' Options class. The default comes from BaseCommand.Options (aka BaseCommandOptions) but classes with additional command line options will usually provide their own subclass:

  class MyCommand(BaseCommand):
  
      @dataclass
      class Options(BaseCommand.Options):
          extra_mode : str = None
          some_flag : bool = False
  
          # extend the common options for the new fields
          COMMON_OPT_SPECS = dict(
              **BaseCommand.Options.COMMON_OPT_SPECS,
              mode_=('extra_mode', 'The extra mode to do something.'),
              flag='some_flag',
          )
  

  This adds an additional --mode mode and a --flag command line option which affects the fields of self.options and updates the automaticly generated usage messages accordingly. See the documentation for BaseCommandOptions.popopts for explaination of the COMMON_OPT_SPECS values.

  Subclasses with no subcommands generally just implement a main(argv) method.

  Subclasses with subcommands should implement a cmd_subcommand(argv) instance method for each subcommand. If a subcommand is itself implemented using BaseCommand then it can be a simple attribute:

  cmd_subthing = SubThingCommand
  

  Returning to methods, if there is a paragraph in the method docstring commencing with `Example:

  @popopts(l='long_mode')
  def cmd_ls(self, argv):
      """ Usage: {cmd} [-l] [paths...]
            Emit a listing for the named paths.
  
          Further docstring non-usage information here.
      """
      ... do the "ls" subcommand ...
      ... with use of self.options.long_mode as needed ...
  

  The subclass is customised by overriding the following methods:

  • run_context(): a context manager to provide setup or teardown actions to occur before and after the command implementation respectively, such as to open and close a database.
  • cmd_subcmd(argv): if the command line options are followed by an argument whose value is subcmd, then the method cmd_subcmd(subcmd_argv) will be called where subcmd_argv contains the command line arguments following subcmd.
  • main(argv): if there are no cmd_subcmd methods then method main(argv) will be called where argv contains the command line arguments.

  Usage summary:

  Usage: ` then that paragraph is incorporated
    into the main usage message automatically.
  

BaseCommand.__init__(self, argv=None, *, cmd=None, options=None, **kw_options) -> str: Initialise the command line. Return the subcommand name, or None if there is only main. Raises GetoptError for unrecognised options.

Parameters:

• argv: optional command line arguments including the main command name if cmd is not specified. The default is sys.argv. The contents of argv are copied, permitting desctructive parsing of argv.
• cmd: optional keyword specifying the command name for context; if this is not specified it is taken from argv.pop(0).
• options: an optional keyword providing object for command state and context. If not specified a new self.Options instance is allocated for use as options. The default Options class is BaseCommandOptions, a dataclass with some prefilled attributes and properties to aid use later. Other keyword arguments are applied to self.options as attributes.

The cmd and argv parameters have some fiddly semantics for convenience. There are 3 basic ways to initialise:

• BaseCommand(): argv comes from sys.argv and the value for cmd is derived from argv[0]
• BaseCommand(argv): argv is the complete command line including the command name and the value for cmd is derived from argv[0]
• BaseCommand(argv, cmd=foo): argv is the command arguments after the command name and cmd is set to foo

The command line arguments are parsed according to the optional GETOPT_SPEC class attribute (default ''). If getopt_spec is not empty then apply_opts(opts) is called to apply the supplied options to the state where opts is the return from getopt.getopt(argv,getopt_spec).

After the option parse, if the first command line argument foo has a corresponding method cmd_foo then that argument is removed from the start of argv and self.cmd_foo(argv,options,cmd=foo) is called and its value returned. Otherwise self.main(argv,options) is called and its value returned.

If the command implementation requires some setup or teardown then this may be provided by the run_context context manager method, called with cmd=subcmd for subcommands and with cmd=None for main.

BaseCommand.Options

BaseCommand.SubCommandClass

BaseCommand.apply_opt(self, opt, val): Handle an individual global command line option.

This default implementation raises a NotImplementedError. It only fires if getopt actually gathered arguments and would imply that a GETOPT_SPEC was supplied without an apply_opt or apply_opts method to implement the options.

BaseCommand.apply_opts(self, opts): Apply command line options.

Subclasses can override this but it is usually easier to override apply_opt(opt,val).

BaseCommand.apply_preargv(self, argv): Do any preparsing of argv before the subcommand/main-args. Return the remaining arguments.

This default implementation does nothing.

BaseCommand.cmd_help(self, argv): Usage: {cmd} [-l] [-s] [subcommand-names...] Print help for subcommands. This outputs the full help for the named subcommands, or the short help for all subcommands if no names are specified. Options: -l Long listing. -r Recurse into subcommands. -s Short listing.

BaseCommand.cmd_info(self, argv, *, field_names=None, skip_names=None): Usage: {cmd} [field-names...] Recite general information. Explicit field names may be provided to override the default listing.

This default method recites the values from self.options, excluding those enumerated by self.options.INFO_SKIP_NAMES.

This base method provides two optional parameters to allow subclasses to tune its behaviour:

• field_namees: an explicit list of options attributes to print
• skip_names: a list of option attributes to not print, default from self.options.INFO_SKIP_NAMES

BaseCommand.cmd_repl(self, argv): Usage: {cmd} Run a REPL (Read Evaluate Print Loop), an interactive Python prompt. Options: --banner banner Banner.

BaseCommand.cmd_shell(*a, upd: Optional[cs.upd.Upd] = <function uses_upd.<locals>.<lambda> at 0x1065c94e0>, **kw): Usage: {cmd} Run a command prompt via cmd.Cmd using this command's subcommands.

BaseCommand.cmdloop(self, intro=None): Use cmd.Cmd to run a command loop which calls the cmd_* methods.

BaseCommand.extract_usage(cmd=None): Extract the Usage: paragraph from cls__doc__ if present. Return a 2-tuple of (doc_without_usage,usage_text) being the remaining docstring and a full usage message.

Note: this actually sets cls.USAGE_FORMAT if that does not already exist.

BaseCommand.getopt_error_handler(cmd, options, e, usage, subcmd=None): The getopt_error_handler method is used to control the handling of GetoptErrors raised during the command line parse or during the main or cmd_subcmd` calls.

This default handler issues a warning containing the exception text, prints the usage message to standard error, and returns True to indicate that the error has been handled.

The handler is called with these parameters:

• cmd: the command name
• options: the options object
• e: the GetoptError exception
• usage: the command usage or None if this was not provided
• subcmd: optional subcommand name; if not None, is the name of the subcommand which caused the error

It returns a true value if the exception is considered handled, in which case the main run method returns 2. It returns a false value if the exception is considered unhandled, in which case the main run method reraises the GetoptError.

To let the exceptions out unhandled this can be overridden with a method which just returns False.

Otherwise, the handler may perform any suitable action and return True to contain the exception or False to cause the exception to be reraised.

BaseCommand.handle_signal(self, sig, frame, *, runstate: Optional[cs.resources.RunState] = <function uses_runstate.<locals>.<lambda> at 0x1065c89a0>): The default signal handler, which cancels the default RunState.

BaseCommand.has_subcommands(): Test whether the class defines additional subcommands.

BaseCommand.method_cmdname(method_name: str): The cmd value from a method name.

BaseCommand.poparg(argv: List[str], *specs, unpop_on_error: bool = False, opt_spec_class=None): Pop the leading argument off argv and parse it. Return the parsed argument. Raises getopt.GetoptError on a missing or invalid argument.

This is expected to be used inside a main or cmd_* command handler method or inside apply_preargv.

You can just use:

value = argv.pop(0)

but this method provides conversion and valuation and a richer failure mode.

Parameters:

• argv: the argument list, which is modified in place with argv.pop(0)
• the argument list argv may be followed by some help text and/or an argument parser function.
• validate: an optional function to validate the parsed value; this should return a true value if valid, or return a false value or raise a ValueError if invalid
• unvalidated_message: an optional message after validate for values failing the validation
• unpop_on_error: optional keyword parameter, default False; if true then push the argument back onto the front of argv if it fails to parse; GetoptError is still raised

Typical use inside a main or cmd_* method might look like:

self.options.word = self.poparg(argv, int, "a count value")
self.options.word = self.poparg(
    argv, int, "a count value",
   lambda count: count > 0, "count should be positive")

Because it raises GetoptError on a bad argument the normal usage message failure mode follows automatically.

Demonstration:

>>> argv = ['word', '3', 'nine', '4']
>>> BaseCommand.poparg(argv, "word to process")
'word'
>>> BaseCommand.poparg(argv, int, "count value")
3
>>> BaseCommand.poparg(argv, float, "length")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
getopt.GetoptError: length 'nine': float('nine'): could not convert string to float: 'nine'
>>> BaseCommand.poparg(argv, float, "width", lambda width: width > 5)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
getopt.GetoptError: width '4': invalid value
>>> BaseCommand.poparg(argv, float, "length")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
getopt.GetoptError: length: missing argument
>>> argv = ['-5', 'zz']
>>> BaseCommand.poparg(argv, float, "size", lambda size: size > 0, "size should be >0")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
getopt.GetoptError: size '-5': size should be >0
>>> argv  # -5 was still consumed
['zz']
>>> BaseCommand.poparg(argv, float, "size2", unpop_on_error=True)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
getopt.GetoptError: size2 'zz': float('zz'): could not convert string to float: 'zz'
>>> argv  # zz was pushed back
['zz']

BaseCommand.popopts(self, argv, options, **opt_specs): OBSOLETE version of popopts, suggestion: self.options.popopts

A convenience shim which returns self.options.popopts(argv,**opt_specs).

BaseCommand.repl(self, *argv, banner=None, local=None): Run an interactive Python prompt with some predefined local names. Aka REPL (Read Evaluate Print Loop).

Parameters:

• argv: any notional command line arguments
• banner: optional banner string
• local: optional local names mapping

The default local mapping is a dict containing:

• argv: from argv
• options: from self.options
• self: from self
• the attributes of options
• the attributes of self

BaseCommand.run(self, **kw_options): Run a command. Returns the exit status of the command. May raise GetoptError from subcommands.

Any keyword arguments are used to override self.options attributes for the duration of the run, for example to presupply a shared Upd from an outer context.

If the first command line argument foo has a corresponding method cmd_foo then that argument is removed from the start of argv and self.cmd_foo(cmd=foo) is called and its value returned. Otherwise self.main(argv) is called and its value returned.

If the command implementation requires some setup or teardown then this may be provided by the run_context() context manager method.

BaseCommand.run_context(*a, upd: Optional[cs.upd.Upd] = <function uses_upd.<locals>.<lambda> at 0x1065c8900>, **kw): The context manager which surrounds main or cmd_subcmd. Normally this will have a bare yield, but you can yield a not None value to exit before the command, for example if the run setup fails.

This default does several things, and subclasses should override it like this:

@contextmanager
def run_context(self):
  with super().run_context():
    try:
      ... subclass context setup ...
      yield
    finally:
      ... any unconditional cleanup ...

This base implementation does the following things:

• provides a self.options which is a copy of the original self.options so that it may freely be modified during the command
• provides a prevailing RunState as self.options.runstate if one is not already present
• provides a cs.upd.Upd context for status lines
• catches self.options.runstate_signals and handles them with self.handle_signal

BaseCommand.subcommand

BaseCommand.subcommand_usage_text(self, subcmd, usage_format_mapping=None, short=False): Return the usage text for a subcommand.

BaseCommand.subcommands

BaseCommand.usage_text(self, **subcommand_kw): Compute the "Usage:" message for this class. Parameters are as for SubCommand.usage_text.

• class BaseCommandCmd(cmd.Cmd): A cmd.Cmd subclass used to provide interactive use of a command's subcommands.

  The BaseCommand.cmdloop() class method instantiates an instance of this and calls its .cmdloop() method i.e. cmd.Cmd.cmdloop.

BaseCommandCmd.get_names(self): Return a list of the subcommand names.

• class BaseCommandOptions(cs.threads.HasThreadState): A base class for the BaseCommand options object.

  This is the default class for the self.options object available during BaseCommand.run(), and available as the BaseCommand.Options attribute.

  Any keyword arguments are applied as field updates to the instance.

  It comes prefilled with:

  • .dry_run=False
  • .force=False
  • .quiet=False
  • .ssh_exe='ssh'
  • .verbose=False and a .doit property which is the inverse of .dry_run.

  It is recommended that if BaseCommand subclasses use a different type for their Options that it should be a subclass of BaseCommandOptions. Since BaseCommandOptions is a data class, this typically looks like:

  @dataclass
  class Options(BaseCommand.Options):
      ... optional extra fields etc ...
  

BaseCommandOptions.__call__(self, **updates): Calling the options object returns a context manager whose value is a shallow copy of the options with any updates applied.

Example showing the semantics:

>>> from cs.cmdutils import BaseCommandOptions
>>> @dataclass
... class DemoOptions(BaseCommandOptions):
...   x: int = 0
...
>>> options = DemoOptions(x=1)
>>> assert options.x == 1
>>> assert not options.verbose
>>> with options(verbose=True) as subopts:
...     assert options is not subopts
...     assert options.x == 1
...     assert not options.verbose
...     assert subopts.x == 1
...     assert subopts.verbose
...
>>> assert options.x == 1
>>> assert not options.verbose

BaseCommandOptions.__post_init__(self): A empty base post __init__ method so that all subclasses' __post_init__s can call their super().__post_init__.

BaseCommandOptions.as_dict(self): Return the options as a dict. This contains all the public attributes of self.

BaseCommandOptions.copy(self, **updates): Return a new instance of BaseCommandOptions (well, type(self)) which is a shallow copy of the public attributes from self.__dict__.

Any keyword arguments are applied as attribute updates to the copy.

BaseCommandOptions.doit: I usually use a doit flag, the inverse of dry_run.

BaseCommandOptions.fields_as_dict(self): Return the options' fields as a dict. This contains all the field values of self.

BaseCommandOptions.getopt_spec_map(opt_specs_kw: Mapping, common_opt_specs=None): Return a 3-tuple of (shortopts,longopts,getopt_spec_map)` being:

• shortopts: the getopt() short options specification string
• longopts: the getopts() long option specification list
• getopt_spec_map: a mapping of opt->OptionSpec where opt is as from opt,val from getopt() and opt_spec is the associated OptionSpec instance

BaseCommandOptions.opt_spec_class

BaseCommandOptions.perthread_state

BaseCommandOptions.popopts(self, argv, **opt_specs_kw): Parse option switches from argv, a list of command line strings with leading option switches and apply them to self. Modify argv in place.

Example use in a BaseCommand cmd_foo method:

def cmd_foo(self, argv):
    options = self.options
    options.popopts(
        c_='config',
        l='long',
        x='trace',
    )
    if self.options.dry_run:
        print("dry run!")

The expected options are specified by the keyword parameters in opt_specs. Each keyword name has the following semantics:

• options not starting with a letter may be preceeded by an underscore to allow use in the parameter list, for example _1='once' for a -1 option setting the once option name
• a single letter name specifies a short option and a multiletter name specifies a long option
• options requiring an argument have a trailing underscore
• options not requiring an argument normally imply a value of True; if their synonym commences with a dash they will imply a value of False, for example n='dry_run',y='-dry_run'.

The BaseCommand class provides a popopts method which is a shim for this method applied to its .options. So common use in a command method usually looks like this:

class SomeCommand(BaseCommand):

    def cmd_foo(self, argv):
        # accept a -j or --jobs options
        self.popopts(argv, jobs=1, j='jobs')
        print("jobs =", self.options.jobs)

The self.options object is preprovided as an instance of the self.Options class, which is BaseCommandOptions by default. There is presupplies support for some basic options like -v for "verbose" and so forth, and a subcommand need not describe these in a call to self.options.popopts().

Example:

>>> import os.path
>>> from typing import Optional
>>> @dataclass
... class DemoOptions(BaseCommandOptions):
...   all: bool = False
...   jobs: int = 1
...   number: int = 0
...   once: bool = False
...   path: Optional[str] = None
...   trace_exec: bool = False
...
>>> options = DemoOptions()
>>> argv = ['-1', '-v', '-y', '-j4', '--path=/foo', 'bah', '-x']
>>> opt_dict = options.popopts(
...   argv,
...   _1='once',
...   a='all',
...   j_=('jobs',int),
...   x='-trace_exec',
...   y='-dry_run',
...   dry_run=None,
...   path_=(str, os.path.isabs, 'not an absolute path'),
...   verbose=None,
... )
>>> opt_dict
{'once': True, 'verbose': True, 'dry_run': False, 'jobs': 4, 'path': '/foo'}
>>> options # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
DemoOptions(cmd=None, dry_run=False, force=False, quiet=False, runstate_signals=(...), verbose=True, all=False, jobs=4, number=0, once=True, path='/foo', trace_exec=False)

BaseCommandOptions.update(self, **updates): Modify the options in place with the mapping updates. It would be more normal to call the options in a with statement as shown for __call__.

BaseCommandOptions.usage_options_format(headline='Options:', *, _common_opt_specs=None, **opt_specs_kw): Return an options paragraph describing opt_specs_kw. or '' if opt_specs_kw is empty.

• cli_datetime(dt_s: str) -> datetime.datetime: Parse an ISO8601 date into a datetime. Being for the command line, this assumes the local timezone if a UTC offset is not specified.

• docmd(dofunc): Decorator for cmd.Cmd subclass methods to supply some basic quality of service.

  This decorator:

  • wraps the function call in a cs.pfx.Pfx for context
  • intercepts getopt.GetoptErrors, issues a warning and runs self.do_help with the method name, then returns None
  • intercepts other Exceptions, issues an exception log message and returns None

  The intended use is to decorate cmd.Cmd do_* methods:

  from cmd import Cmd
  from cs.cmdutils import docmd
  ...
  class MyCmd(Cmd):
      @docmd
      def do_something(...):
          ... do something ...
  

• class OptionSpec: A class to support parsing an option value.

OptionSpec.__post_init__(self): Infer field_name and help_text if unspecified.

OptionSpec.add_argument(self, parser, options=None): Add this option to an argparser-style option parser. The optional options parameter may be used to supply an Options instance to provide a default value.

OptionSpec.from_opt_kw(opt_k: str, specs: Union[str, List, Tuple, NoneType]): Factory to produce an OptionSpec from a (key,specs) 2-tuple as from the items() from a popopts() call.

The specs is normally a list or tuple, but a bare string will be promoted to a 1-element list containing the string.

The elements of specs are considered in order for:

• an identifier specifying the arg_name, optionally prepended with a dash to indicate an inverted option
• a help text about the option
• a callable to parse the option string value to obtain the actual value
• a callable to validate the option value
• a message for use when validation fails

OptionSpec.getopt_long: The option specification for a getopt long option. Return None if self.opt_name is only 1 character.

OptionSpec.getopt_opt: The opt we expect from opt,val=getopt(argv,...).

OptionSpec.getopt_short: The option specification for a getopt short option. Return '' if self.opt_name is longer than 1 character.

OptionSpec.help_text_from_field_name(field_name): Compute an inferred help_text from an option field_name.

OptionSpec.needs_arg: Whether we expect an argument: we have a self.arg_name.

OptionSpec.option_terse(self): Return the "-x" or "--name" option string (with the arg name if expected).

OptionSpec.option_usage(self): A 2 line usage entry for this option.

Example:

-j jobs
  Job limit.

OptionSpec.parse_value(self, value): Parse value according to the spec. Raises GetoptError for invalid values.

• popopts(*da, **dkw): A decorator to parse command line options from a cmd_method's argv and update self.options. This also updates the method's usage message.

  Example:

  @popopts(x=('trace', 'Trace execution.'))
  def cmd_do_something(self, argv):
      """ Usage: {cmd} [-x] blah blah
            Do some thing to blah.
      """
  

  This arranges for cmd_do_something to call self.options.popopts(argv), and updates the usage message with an "Options:" paragraph.

  This avoids needing to manually enumerate the options in the docstring usage and avoids explicitly calling self.options.popopts inside the method.

• qprint(*print_a, quiet: bool, **qvprint_kw): Call print() if not options.quiet. This is a compatibility shim for qvprint() with verbose=not quiet and quiet=False.

• qvprint(*print_a, quiet, verbose, **print_kw): Call print() if options.verbose and not options.quiet.

• split_usage(doc: Optional[str], usage_marker='Usage:') -> Tuple[str, str, str]: Extract a "Usage:"paragraph from a docstring and return a 3-tuple of (preusage,usage,postusage).

  If the usage paragraph is not present '' is returned as the middle comonpent, otherwise it is the unindented usage without the leading "Usage:".

• class SubCommand: An implementation for a subcommand.

SubCommand.__call__(self, argv: List[str]): Run the subcommand.

Parameters:

• argv: the command line arguments after the subcommand name

SubCommand.get_cmd(self) -> str: Return the cmd string for this SubCommand, derived from the subcommand's method name or class name if self.cmd is not set.

SubCommand.get_subcmds(self): Return the names of self.method's subcommands in lexical order.

SubCommand.get_subcommands(self): Return self.method's mapping of subcommand name to SubCommand.

SubCommand.get_usage_format(self, show_common=False) -> str: Return the usage format string for this subcommand. Note: no leading "Usage:" prefix. If show_common is true, include the Common options: paragraph.

SubCommand.get_usage_keywords(self, *, cmd: Optional[str] = None, usage_mapping: Optional[Mapping] = None) -> str: Return a mapping to be used when formatting the usage format string.

This is an elaborate ChainMap of:

• the optional cmd or self.get_cmd()
• the optional usage_mapping parameter
• self.usage_mapping
• self.method.USAGE_KEYWORDS if present
• the attributes of self.command
• the attributes of type(self.command)
• the attributes of the module for type(self.command)

SubCommand.has_subcommands(self): Whether this SubCommand's .method has subcommands.

SubCommand.instance: An instance of the class for self.method.

SubCommand.short_subusages(self, subcmds: List[str], *, recurse=False, short=False): Return a list of tabulated one line subcommand summaries.

SubCommand.subusage_table(self, subcmds: List[str], *, recurse=False, short=False): Return rows for use with cs.lex.tabulate for the short subusage listing.

SubCommand.usage_text(self, *, cmd=None, short: bool, recurse: bool = False, show_common: bool = False, show_subcmds: Union[bool, str, List[str], NoneType] = None, usage_mapping: Optional[Mapping] = None, seen_subcommands: Optional[Mapping] = None) -> str: Return the filled out usage text for this subcommand.

• vprint(*print_a, **qvprint_kw): Call print() if options.verbose. This is a compatibility shim for qvprint() with quiet=False.

Release Log

Release 20250724:

• BaseCommandOptions: new empty post_init so that subclasses can call super().post_init() unconditionally.
• New cli_datetime to parse a CLI supplied datetime specification, accepts ISO8601.

Release 20250531.1: Fix precedence of subcommand options over inherited common options.

Release 20250531:

• Fix @popopts internals for recent @decorator internal changes.
• Fix BaseCommandOptions.getopt_spec_map to let the subcommand options override the inherited common options.
• Fix a format string.

Release 20250528: New qprint() which prints if not quiet a bit like vprint(), which prints if verbose and not quiet.

Release 20250426: Minor changes.

Release 20250418:

• BaseCommand: honour SUBCOMMAND_ARGV_DEFAULT even when there are no subcommands.
• BaseCommand._prerun_setup: bugfix application of default argv, was setting self._argv too early.
• Some documentation updates.

Release 20250306: If a subcommand raises GetoptError, only show the usage for that subcommand.

Release 20250103: BaseCommand.cmd_info: default skip_names is self.options.INFO_SKIP_NAMES.

Release 20241222.1:

• BaseCommand.cmd_info: use pformat instead of str.
• BaseCommand.cmd_repl: enumerate the options as top level names in the banner.
• If run as main programme, run a demo command.

Release 20241222: BaseCommand.cmd_info: use compact=True with the pforat() call.

Release 20241218: BaseCommand: add cmd_repl to the default subcomands.

Release 20241212: SubCommand.short_subusages: use a single tabluate() table for the entire recursive listing, produces a much more readable short listing.

Release 20241207: BaseCommandOptions.usage_options_format: support multiline help text via the new tabulate support.

Release 20241206.1: SubComand.usage_text: normalise the show_subcmds to match the subcommands mapping.

Release 20241206:

• New @popopts decorator to run self.options.popopts and fill out the usage message.
• Add "-e ssh-command" and the .ssh_exe attribute to BaseCommandOptions.

Release 20241122.2:

• OptionSpec.getopt_long: fix construction of getopt long option specifications, lost during the recent refactor.
• Two other minor fixes.

Release 20241122.1:

• SubCommand.usage_format_parts: backport type annotation for older Pythons.
• BaseCommand.extract_usage: update parameters for usage_text().

Release 20241122:

• BaseCommand.cmd_help: new -l (long), -r (recurse) and -s (short, not long) options.
• A big rework of the help/usage output; still one rough edge left.
• BaseCommandOptions.popopts: infill with False instead of None for missing boolean options.
• SubCommand: a few new methods and properties to expose various operations.
• BaseCommand._prerun_setup: revert SUBCOMMAND_ARGV_DEFAULT to None, make a missing subcommand run "help -s" when there's no SUBCOMMAND_ARGV_DEFAULT.

Release 20241119:

• SubCommand.usage_text: small improvements and a fix.
• New BaseCommand.SubCommandClass attribute for the SubCommand subclass, supports using additional SubCommand subclasses for eg cs.djutils.

Release 20241117:

• _COMMON_OPT_SPECS: include a --dry-run option, alter for -n.
• SubCommand.usage_text: one line listing for common subcommands.

Release 20241110:

• Various fixes and enhancements to the usage text generation.
• BaseCommandOptions.COMMON_OPT_SPECS stuff, including inheritance and presentation in usage.
• BaseCommand.run: if self.run_context() yields not None, exit immediately with that value.
• Rationalise and improve OptionSpec.
• Supplant vprint with qvprint which honours quiet and verbose, provide vprint as a shim with a hardwired quiet=False.
• Make cmd_info the default subcommand and make some improvements.
• BaseCommandOptions: new fields_as_dict method, update copy() to start with fields_as_dict, overlay as_dict, overlay updates.
• OptionSpec: new add_argument(parser[,options]) method to add this option to an argparse style option parser (again, for the upcoming cs.djutils module).
• A heap of small things.

Release 20241007:

• BaseCommand: drop init_subclass, was doing too much to early.
• BaseCommand.init: no cmd and argv[0] ends with ".py" infer cmd from the class name.
• Other minor updates.

Release 20241005:

• BaseCommand: provide an options.runstate to allow the command to override the default (almost never happens).
• BaseCommand.popopts: fix reference to OptionSpec class.
• BaseCommand.run: put the try/except:CancellationError outside the self.run_context context manager call, as it can directly raise CancellationError.
• New vprint() function calling print() if options.verbose.

Release 20240709: BaseCommand: support putting the top level Usage in the class docstring instead of as .USAGE_FORMAT, append full usage to the class docstring in BaseCommand.__init_subclass__.

Release 20240630:

• BaseCommand: make SUBCOMMAND_ARGV_DEFAULT be 'shell' for an interactive prompt, still a little unsure how sensible this is, aiming at the very cool submode stuff from the Cisco switch config command line.
• BaseCommandOptions: new as_dict() method.
• New SubCommand.usage_text() to compose the full usage text for this SubCommand.
• Many small improvements and internal refactors.

Release 20240519: BaseCommand.run_context: attach the runstate to the options.

Release 20240422:

• BaseCommandOptions.popopts: return the dict from BaseCommand.popopts().
• BaseCommand.apply_preargv: apply the default options supported by self.options.
• BaseCommandOptions.update(mapping) method, useful for dropping subcommand-specific defaults onto the options ahead of the local popopts() call.

Release 20240412:

• BaseCommand.run_context: do not store .upd and .runstate on the options (it confuses options in subcommands and we have @uses_runstate and @uses_upd forthis anyway these days).
• BaseCommand.run_context: catch SIGQUIT, present the default handler as BaseCommand.handle_signal.

Release 20240316:

• New @uses_cmd_options decorator to provide an "options" parameter being the prevailing BaseCommandOptions instance.
• BaseCommandOptions.popopts: get common options from BaseCommandOptions.COMMON_OPT_SPECS.

Release 20240211:

• Include the first sentence of the subcommand description in the short help.
• BaseCommandOptions: move the runstate_signals into this directly.
• BaseCommand: move the run() options stuff into run_context() and have it work on a copy of the original options.
• BaseCommandCmd: implement get_names(), provide docstrings for the do_* attributes, thus help.
• BaseCommand.run_context: make runstate and upd keyword only parameters.

Release 20240201:

• BaseCommand.run: catch CancellationError and return 1.
• BaseCommandCmd.getattr: recognise EOF, exit and quit to terminate the cmdloop.

Release 20231129: BaseCommandOptions: define a runstate field.

Release 20230703: Small internal changes.

Release 20230612:

• BaseCommand.cmdloop: fix intro parameter.
• Other small fixes.

Release 20230407:

• BaseCommand: use @uses_runstate when preparing the command, store as self.options.runstate.
• Make BaseCommandOptions a data class.
• Drop any pretence at python 2 support, we're long past that.
• BaseCommand: new cmdloop method to run a cmd.Cmd instance to run subcommand interactively.
• BaseCommand: rename shell to repl, add cmd_shell to call cmdloop().
• Drop BaseCommand.apply_defaults in favour of the Options dataclass.
• BaseCommand: do setup_logging before initiating the Options instance.

Release 20230212:

• BaseCommand.run_context: update RunState support.
• BaseCommand.run_context: always be having an self.options.upd.

Release 20230211: BaseCommand: new shell() method to present an interactive Python prompt for use by subclasses cmd_shell method if desired.

Release 20221228: Move a lot of the context logic from BaseCommand.run to BaseCommand.run_context, which now must be correctly overridden in subclasses.

Release 20220918:

• BaseCommand.run_context: expand default signals to include SIGHUP, expose as BaseCommand.DEFAULT_SIGNALS.
• BaseCommand.run: pass in the subclass handle_signal method if present.

Release 20220626:

• BaseCommand.poparg: fix positional argument handling.
• BaseCommand.poparg: new unpop_on_error=False parameter to support pushing a bad argument back onto the front of the argument list.

Release 20220606: BaseCommand.run: remove the Upd bodge, too annoying, now fixed in cs.upd I believe.

Release 20220605:

• BaseCommand: new popopts(argv,...) compact getopt wrapper.
• BaseCommand: new poparg(argv,...) compact validating argument consumer.
• BaseCommand: drop run_argv, provided no utility.
• BaseCommand.run: get the RunState signal list from self.options.runstate_signals.
• BaseCommand.apply_opts: support multiple individual options raising GetoptError, as I hate commands which abort at the first bad option.
• Assorted other small things.

Release 20220429:

• BaseCommand: fold dots in argv[0] into underscores, supports subcommands like "setup.py".
• BaseCommand: new popargv(argv[,help_text[,parse[,validate[,unvalidated_message]]]]) helper class method.
• BaseCommand: accept dashed-form of the underscored_form subcommand name.
• BaseCommand: new self.options.runstate_signals=SIGINT,SIGTERM specifying singals to catch-and-cancel, shuffle run() context managers.

Release 20220318: BaseCommand.init: handle main() method in the New Scheme.

Release 20220315: _BaseSubCommand.init: hook in the class USAGE_KEYWORDS for methods.

Release 20220311: BaseCommand: big refactor of subcommand internals and make the "cmd_foo=FooCommand" implementation work properly.

Release 20211208: BaseCommand: better handle an unknown subcommand.

Release 20210927:

• Usage: show only the per subcommand usage for in-subcommand GetoptError.
• Usage: show terse usage when the subcommand cannot be recognised.
• Usage: support bare -h, -help, --help.

Release 20210913: New BaseCommand.apply_preargv method to gather special arguments before subcommands.

Release 20210906:

• BaseCommand.cmd_help: bugfix obsolete parameter list.
• BaseCommand.SUBCOMMAND_ARGV_DEFAULT: support a single str value, turn into list.

Release 20210809: Bugfix BaseCommand.cmd_help for modern API.

Release 20210731:

• BaseCommand.run: apply optional keyword arguments to self.options during the run.
• Look for self.SUBCOMMAND_ARGV_DEFAULT if no subcommand is supplied.
• Bugfix case for "main" method and no "cmd_*" methods.
• Bugfix BaseCommand.cmd_help.

Release 20210420:

• BaseCommand.getopt_error_handler: replace error print() with warning().
• Docstring improvements.

Release 20210407.1: BaseCommand: bugfix for init_subclass docstring update.

Release 20210407:

• BaseCommand.init_subclass: behave sanely if the subclass has no initial doc.
• BaseCommand: new .run_argv convenience method, obviates the "def main" boilerplate.

Release 20210404: BaseCommand subclasses: automatically add the main usage message to the subclass docstring.

Release 20210306:

• BREAKING CHANGE: rework BaseCommand as a more normal class instantiated with argv and with most methods being instance methods, getting the former options parameter from self.options.
• BaseCommand: provide default apply_opt and apply_opts methods; subclasses will generally just override the former.

Release 20210123: BaseCommand: propagate the format mapping (cmd, USAGE_KEYWORDS) to the subusage generation.

Release 20201102:

• BaseCommand.cmd_help: supply usage only for "all commands", full docstring for specified commands.
• BaseCommand: honour presupplied options.log_level.
• BaseCommand.usage_text: handle missing USAGE_FORMAT better.
• BaseCommand.run: provide options.upd.
• BaseCommand subclasses may now override BaseCommand.OPTIONS_CLASS (default SimpleNamespace) in order to provide convenience methods on the options.
• BaseCommand.run: separate variable for subcmd with dash translated to underscore to match method names.
• Minor fixes.

Release 20200615: BaseCommand.usage_text: do not mention the "help" command if it is the only subcommand (it won't be available if there are no other subcommands).

Release 20200521.1: Fix DISTINFO.install_requires.

Release 20200521:

• BaseCommand.run: support using BaseCommand subclasses as cmd_* names to make it easy to nest BaseCommands.
• BaseCommand: new hack_postopts_argv method called after parsing the main command line options, for inferring subcommands or the like.
• BaseCommand: extract "Usage:" paragraphs from subcommand method docstrings to build the main usage message.
• BaseCommand: new cmd_help default command.
• Assorted bugfixes and small improvements.

Release 20200318:

• BaseCommand.run: make argv optional, get additional usage keywords from self.USAGE_KEYWORDS.
• @BaseCommand.add_usage_to_docstring: honour cls.USAGE_KEYWORDS.
• BaseCommand: do not require GETOPT_SPEC for commands with no defined options.
• BaseCommand.run: call cs.logutils.setup_logging.

Release 20200229: Improve subcommand selection logic, replace StackableValues with stackattrs, drop cmd from arguments passed to main/cmd_* methods (present in options).

Release 20200210:

• New BaseCommand.add_usage_to_docstring class method to be called after class setup, to append the usage message to the class docstring.
• BaseCommand.run: remove spurious Pfx(cmd), as logutils does this for us already.

Release 20190729: BaseCommand: support for a USAGE_FORMAT usage message format string and a getopt_error_handler method.

Release 20190619.1: Another niggling docstring formatting fix.

Release 20190619: Minor documentation updates.

Release 20190617.2: Lint.

Release 20190617.1: Initial release with @docmd decorator and alpha quality BaseCommand command line assistance class.