Question

I was asked to simulate CLI with Python.

This is what I did

def somefunction(a,b):
    //codes here
//consider some other functions too

print "--- StackOverFlow Shell ---"
while True:
    user_input = raw_input("#> ")
    splitit = user_input.split(" ")
    if splitit[0] == "add":
        firstNum = splitit[1]
        sNum = splitit[2]
        result = somefunction(firstNum, sNum)
        print result
    //consider some other elif blocks with "sub", "div", etc
    else:
        print "Invalid Command"

I do also check the length of the list, here “splitit” I will allow only 3 argumets, first will be the operation, and second and third are the arguments with which some functions are to be performed, in case the argument is more than 3, for that i do put a check.

Though Somehow I manage to make it work, but is there a better way to achieve the same?

Answer 1

Use python CMD Module:

Check few examples given on the below pages

http://docs.python.org/library/cmd.html # Support for line-oriented command interpreters

http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/cmd – # Create line-oriented command processors

prompt can be set to a string to be printed each time the user is asked for a new command.

intro is the “welcome” message printed at the start of the program.

eg:

import cmd

class HelloWorld(cmd.Cmd):
    """Simple command processor example."""

    prompt = 'prompt: '
    intro = "Simple command processor example."