Use argparse to run 1 of 2 functions in my script

Question

I currently have 2 functions in my .py script.

#1 connects to the database and does some processing.

#2 does some other processing on files

Currently

Answer 1

If it's just a flag of run A or B, then a simple "store_true" argument should be fine.

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--run_a_not_b', action='store_true')
_StoreTrueAction(option_strings=['--run_a_not_b'], dest='run_a_not_b', nargs=0, const=True, default=False, type=None, choices=None, help=None, metavar=None)
>>> parser.parse_args('--run_a_not_b')
>>> parsed_args = parser.parse_args('--run_a_not_b'.split())
>>> if parsed_args.run_a_not_b:
    print "run a"
else:
    print "run b"


run a
>>> parsed_args = parser.parse_args(''.split())
>>> if parsed_args.run_a_not_b:
    print "run a"
else:
    print "run b"


run b

Or if you want to actually pass in the name of the function to call, you can do it this (somewhat hackish) way:

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--func_to_run', type=str)
_StoreAction(option_strings=['--func_to_run'], dest='func_to_run', nargs=None, const=None, default=None, type=, choices=None, help=None, metavar=None)
>>> parsed_args = parser.parse_args('--func_to_run my_other_func'.split())
>>> parsed_args.func_to_run
'my_other_func'
>>> f = globals()[parsed_args.func_to_run]

>>> f()

edit : to handle an integer argument, you would simply specify the type

>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--run_a_not_b', action='store_true')
>>> parser.add_argument('--func_arg', type=int)
>>> parsed_args = parser.parse_args('--run_a_not_b --arg 42'.split())
>>> parsed_args = parser.parse_args('--run_a_not_b --func_arg 42'.split())
>>> parsed_args
Namespace(func_arg=42, run_a_not_b=True)

So, you can simply get parsed_args.func_arg for the value if you choose in this example.