Question

I want to add a debug print statement test, if I enable --verbose from the command line and if I have the following in the script.

logger.info("test")

I went through the following questions, but couldn’t get the answer…

• How to implement the –verbose or -v option into a script?

• Python logging – Is there something below DEBUG?

Answer 1

You need to combine the wisdom of the Argparse Tutorial with Python’s Logging HOWTO. Here’s an example…

> cat verbose.py 
#!/usr/bin/env python

import argparse
import logging

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
    description='A test script for http://stackoverflow.com/q/14097061/78845'
)
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", help="increase output verbosity",
                    action="store_true")

args = parser.parse_args()
if args.verbose:
    logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)

logging.debug('Only shown in debug mode')

Run the help:

> ./verbose.py -h
usage: verbose.py [-h] [-v]

A test script for http://stackoverflow.com/q/14097061/78845

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose  increase output verbosity

Running in verbose mode:

> ./verbose.py -v
DEBUG:root:Only shown in debug mode

Running silently:

> ./verbose.py   
>