Question

For example I have options:

parser.add_argument('-b', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-c', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-d', action="store_true")

I want to enable all of them with synonym option “-a”. Is it possible?

Answer 1

I think it is simplest to do this after parse_args():

import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-b', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-c', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-d', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-a', action="store_true")
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.a: args.b = args.c = args.d = True

Alternatively, you could do it with a custom action, but I think it is overkill:

import argparse
class AllAction(argparse.Action):
    def __call__(self, parser, args, values, option_string = None):
        # print '{n} {v} {o}'.format(n = args, v = values, o = option_string)
        for param in ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']:
            setattr(args, param, True)

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-b', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-c', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-d', action="store_true")
parser.add_argument('-a', action = AllAction, nargs = '?')
args = parser.parse_args()
print(args)