basic example of python parsing of command-line arguments

parse_command_line.py

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys, getopt

def config_file_parser(configfile):
    """
    Very basic code for reading a simple config file and returning
    a dictionary of options.
    """
    config = {}
    with open(configfile,'r') as f:
        for line in f:
            # assumes a rigid format : name=value
            atoms = [x.strip() for x in line.strip().split('=')]
            config[atoms[0]] = int(atoms[1])
    f.close()
    return config

def write_output(config, outputfile):
    """
    Just dumps the values of the config dict to the output file
    specified; assumes all config values are ints.
    """
    f = open(outputfile,'w')
    # does not print them in a controlled order!
    f.write('%s\n' % ','.join([str(x) for x in config.values()]))
    f.close()


def main(argv):
    # parse the options and set the filenames
    configfile=''
    outputfile=''
    try:
        opts,args = getopt.getopt(argv,"c:o:",["config=","output="])
    except getopt.GetoptError:
        print 'myscript.py -c <configfile> -o <outputfile>'
        sys.exit(2)
    for opt, arg in opts:
        if opt in ("-c","--config"):
            configfile = arg
        elif opt in ("-o","--output"):
            outputfile = arg
    # read the config file
    config = config_file_parser(configfile)
    # now do a dump to output
    write_output(config,outputfile)



if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(sys.argv[1:])