python unittest for argparse

Question

I have a function inside a module that creates an argparse:

def get_options(prog_version=\'1.0\', prog_usage=\'\', misc_opts=None):
     options         


        

Answer 1

I prefer explicitly passing arguments instead of relying on globally available attributes such as sys.argv (which parser.parse_args() does internally). Thus I usually use argparse by passing the list of arguments myself (to main() and subsequently get_options() and wherever you need them):

def get_options(args, prog_version='1.0', prog_usage='', misc_opts=None):
    # ...
    return parser.parse_args(args)

and then pass in the arguments

def main(args):
    get_options(args)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(sys.argv[1:])

that way I can replace and test any list of arguments I like

options = get_options(['-c','config.yaml'])
self.assertEquals('config.yaml', options.config)