I have just started playing around with Python like a few weeks back and having lots of fun scripting in it. Today at work got to know of a very nice feature with Python which lets you easily configure the options taken from command line, which is called option parser.
Firstly, you need to include the library with ‘import’:
from optparse import OptionParser
Now you can use it like this:
usage = "usage: %prog -H hostname -p port -d diskpath -t threshold"
parser = OptionParser(usage=usage, version="%prog 1.0")
parser.add_option("-H", "--host", action="store", type="string", dest="hostname",
help="input host name for database server")
parser.add_option("-d", "--disk", action="store",
type="string", dest="diskpath", help="input disk path")
parser.add_option("-p", "--port", action="store", type="string",
dest="dbport", help="input port for database server")
parser.add_option("-t", "--thresh", action="store", type="int",
dest="thresh", help="input threshold for disk size ")
Where every add_option means adding a new argument on command line to check for and the best thing is you just put in the help section with the add_option function call and it automagically builds the full help section for the program to be use with “-h”, so that means you cant have an option with “-h” as that clashes with the default help option for option parser, and that was the reason I had to go with “-H” for hostname 
In order to get the values into variables just simply use:
(options, args) = parser.parse_args()
if options.hostname:
hostname=options.hostname
if options.diskpath:
diskpath=options.diskpath
if options.dbport:
dbport=options.dbport
if options.thresh:
thresh=options.thresh
Now when you run the program with “-h” option you get the following:
shoaib@shoaib-desktop:~/Desktop/Scripts$ ./mgmnt -h
Usage: mgmnt -H hostname -p port -d diskpath -t threshold
Options:
--version show program's version number and exit
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-H HOSTNAME, --host=HOSTNAME
input host name for database server
-d DISKPATH, --disk=DISKPATH
input disk path
-p DBPORT, --port=DBPORT
input port for database server
-t THRESH, --thresh=THRESH
input threshold for disk size
–
Shoaib Mir
shoaibmir[@]gmail.com
