Question

hello im new to python and have been reading over the documentation and am having trouble with argparse

here is the code i am trying it onsimple explanation for a simple minded person please
thanks in advance

#!/usr/bin/env python
import argparse
from string import ascii_lowercase
from string import ascii_uppercase
from string import digits
from string import punctuation

def options():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Create a list of characters")
    parser.add_argument('-c:')
    if (args.c):# == "-c:":
        if "-c" + ":" + "caps":
            charset = ascii_uppercase
        elif "-c:" + "small":
            charset = ascii_lowercase
        elif "-c:" + "digits":
            charset = digits
        elif "-c:" + "punc":
            charset = punctuation + " "
        elif "-c:" + "space":
            charset = " "
        elif "-c:" + "all":
            charset = ascii_lowercase + ascii_uppercase + digits + punctuation + space
        else:
            print("when using -c you must include an option! (caps, small, digits, punc, space, all)")

def filename():
    filename = open('C:\\Users\\MSec\\Desktop\\WordLists\\'+sys.argv[1], 'w')
    return 

if __name__ == "__main__":
    filename()
    options()

again im new didnt quite understand the documentation

i guess while im at it is there a better ( or more pythonic) way to code all the options instead of many elif statements?

thanks everyone

Answer 1

All your if statements are always true.

if "-c" + ":" + "caps":

Means

if "-c:caps":

The string “-c:caps” is non-false. The same goes for the rest of the similar if-statements.

You probably mean

if args.c == 'caps':

And no, there is often no better way that a long list of elifs. There are other ways, but this is the easiest to write and understand, and hence the best.

In this case, however, you can make a dictionary:

CHAR_OPTIONS = {'caps': ascii_uppercase,
                'small': ascii_lowercase,
                etc....
               }

And use it like so:

charset = CHAR_OPTIONS[args.c]