type=dict in argparse.add_argument()

Question

I\'m trying to set up a dictionary as optional argument (using argparse); the following line is what I have so far:

parser.add_argument(\'-i\',\'--image\', t         


        

Answer 1

General Advice: DO NOT USE eval.

If you really have to ... "eval" is dangerous. Use it if you are sure no one will knowingly input malicious input. Even then there can be disadvantages. I have covered one bad example.

Using eval instead of json.loads has some advantages as well though. A dict doesn't really need to be a valid json. Hence, eval can be pretty lenient in accepting "dictionaries". We can take care of the "danger" part by making sure that final result is indeed a python dictionary.

import json
import argparse

tests = [
  '{"name": "img.png","voids": "#00ff00ff","0": "#ff00ff00","100%": "#f80654ff"}',
  '{"a": 1}',
  "{'b':1}",
  "{'$abc': '$123'}",
  '{"a": "a" "b"}' # Bad dictionary but still accepted by eval
]
def eval_json(x):
  dicti = eval(x)
  assert isinstance(dicti, dict)
  return dicti

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-i', '--input', type=eval_json)
for test in tests:
  args = parser.parse_args(['-i', test])
  print(args)

Output:

Namespace(input={'name': 'img.png', '0': '#ff00ff00', '100%': '#f80654ff', 'voids': '#00ff00ff'})
Namespace(input={'a': 1})
Namespace(input={'b': 1})
Namespace(input={'$abc': '$123'})
Namespace(input={'a': 'ab'})