How to pass arguments to functions while executing a python script from terminal?

Question

I have a python file named solution.py and I can successfully execute it through the terminal using the following commands:

chmod +x solution.py
python3 solution.py

This works just fine if I have simple print phrases and so on.

What should I do if I have defined a function in solution.py and I want to call it with parameters that I want directly from terminal? How do I pass the arguments to the function call?

http://stackoverflow.com/a/15747198/1123893 – wojox Mar 06 '14 at 14:05 — wojox, Mar 06 '14 at 14:05
You do not need here chmod +x! Just read access. – Léo Léopold Hertz 준영 Jun 25 '17 at 08:58 — Léo Léopold Hertz 준영, Jun 25 '17 at 08:58

score 21 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 11 '14 at 13:30

21

You can also use the sys module. Here is an example :

import sys

first_arg = sys.argv[1]
second_arg = sys.argv[2]

def greetings(word1=first_arg, word2=second_arg):
    print("{} {}".format(word1, word2))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    greetings()
    greetings("Bonjour", "monde")

It has the behavior your are looking for :

$ python parse_args.py Hello world
Hello world
Bonjour monde

edited Mar 11 '14 at 13:30

Aditya

13,626

answered Mar 06 '14 at 13:56

Buddyshot

1,398

ok, but how many of args we can send from terminal to the file? – Yevgenii Shashkov Dec 25 '17 at 22:23

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 11 '14 at 13:33

2

Python provides more than one way to parse arguments. The best choice is using the argparse module, which has many features you can use.

So you have to parse arguments in your code and try to catch and fetch the arguments inside your code.

You can't just pass arguments through terminal without parsing them from your code.

edited Mar 11 '14 at 13:33

Aditya

13,626

answered Mar 06 '14 at 07:39

Maythux

87,451

How to pass arguments to functions while executing a python script from terminal?

2 Answers2