appeal: Command-line parsing library for Python 3

• https://github.com/larryhastings/appeal

Overview

Appeal is a command-line argument processing library for Python, like argparse, optparse, getopt, click, docopt, and Typer.

But Appeal takes a refreshing new approach.

Other libraries have complicated, cumbersome interfaces that force you to repeat yourself over and over.

Appeal leverages Python’s rich function call interface, which makes defining your command-line interface effortless . You write Python functions, and Appeal translates them into command-line options and arguments.

Appeal provides amazing power and flexibility–but it’s also intuitive, because it mirrors Python itself. If you understand how to write Python functions, you’re already halfway to understanding Appeal!

A New And Appealing Approach

Appeal isn’t like other command-line parsing libraries.

In fact, you really shouldn’t think of Appeal as a “command-line parsing library” per se.

And, although you work with Appeal by passing in functions for Appeal to call, you shouldn’t think of these functions as “callbacks”.

Appeal lets you design APIs callable from the command-line .

It’s just like any other Python library API–except that the caller calls you from the command-line instead of from Python.

Appeal is the mechanism converting between these two domains:

• it translates your API into command-line semantics,

• then translates the user’s command-line back into calls to your API.

This raises another good point: the API you build using Appeal also often makes for a very nice automation API, allowing your program to also be used as a library by other programs with minimal effort.