Question

Using optparse, I want to separate the list of option list parameters from the place where I call add_option(). How do I package the stuff up in File A (and then unpack in file B) so that this will work? The parser_options.append() lines will not work as written…

File A:

import file_b
parser_options = []
parser_options.append(('-b', '--bootcount', type='string', dest='bootcount', default='', help='Number of times to repeat booting and testing, if applicable'))
parser_options.append(('-d', '--duration', type='string', dest='duration', default='', help='Number of hours to run the test.  Decimals OK'))

my_object = file_b.B(parser_options)

File B recieves parser_options as input:

import optparse
class B:
    def __init__(self, parser_options):
        self.parser = optparse.OptionParser('MyTest Options')
        if parser_options:
            for option in parser_options: 
                self.parser.add_option(option)

* EDIT: Fixed to use ojbects

Answer 1

Rather than try to shoehorn your options into some data structure, wouldn’t it be simpler to define a function in file A that adds options to a parser you give it?

File A:

def addOptions(parser):
    parser.add_option('-b', '--bootcount', type='string', dest='bootcount', default='', help='Number of times to repeat booting and testing, if applicable')
    parser.add_option('-d', '--duration', type='string', dest='duration', default='', help='Number of hours to run the test.  Decimals OK')

File B:

import optparse
def build_parser(parser_options):
    parser = optparse.OptionParser('MyTest Options')
    if parser_options:
        parser_options(parser)

elsewhere:

import file_a
import file_b
file_b.build_parser(file_a.addOptions)