Python Argparse: Issue with optional arguments which are negative numbers

Question

I\'m having a small issue with argparse. I have an option xlim which is the xrange of a plot. I want to be able to pass numbers like <

Answer 1

One workaround I've found is to quote the value, but adding a space. That is,

./blaa.py --xlim " -2.e-3" 1e4

This way argparse won't think -2.e-3 is an option name because the first character is not a hyphen-dash, but it will still be converted properly to a float because float(string) ignores spaces on the left.