argparse documentation updates (including updates to optparse and getopt documentation that were promised in the PEP)
diff --git a/Doc/library/getopt.rst b/Doc/library/getopt.rst
index 91bf343..3114a82 100644
--- a/Doc/library/getopt.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/getopt.rst
@@ -6,6 +6,12 @@
:synopsis: Portable parser for command line options; support both short and long option
names.
+.. note::
+ The :mod:`getopt` module is a parser for command line options whose API is
+ designed to be familiar to users of the C :cfunc:`getopt` function. Users who
+ are unfamiliar with the C :cfunc:`getopt` function or who would like to write
+ less code and get better help and error messages should consider using the
+ :mod:`argparse` module instead.
This module helps scripts to parse the command line arguments in ``sys.argv``.
It supports the same conventions as the Unix :cfunc:`getopt` function (including
@@ -142,9 +148,21 @@
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
+Note that an equivalent command line interface could be produced with less code
+and more informative help and error messages by using the :mod:`argparse` module::
+
+ import argparse
+
+ if __name__ == '__main__':
+ parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+ parser.add_argument('-o', '--output')
+ parser.add_argument('-v', dest='verbose', action='store_true')
+ args = parser.parse_args()
+ # ... do something with args.output ...
+ # ... do something with args.verbose ..
.. seealso::
- Module :mod:`optparse`
- More object-oriented command line option parsing.
+ Module :mod:`argparse`
+ Alternative command line option and argument parsing library.