mando: CLI interfaces for Humans!

mando is a wrapper around argparse, and allows you to write complete CLI applications in seconds while maintaining all the flexibility.

Installation

The problem

While argparse is great for simple command line applications with only one, default command, when you have to add multiple commands and manage them things get really messy and long. But don't worry, mando comes to help!

Quickstart

from mando import command, main

@command
def echo(text, capitalize=False):
    '''Echo the given text.'''
    if capitalize:
        text = text.upper()
    print(text)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Generated help:

$ python example.py -h
usage: example.py [-h] {echo} ...

positional arguments:
  {echo}
    echo      Echo the given text.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

$ python example.py echo -h
usage: example.py echo [-h] [--capitalize] text

Echo the given text.

positional arguments:
  text

optional arguments:
  -h, --help    show this help message and exit
  --capitalize

Actual usage:

$ python example.py echo spam
spam
$ python example.py echo --capitalize spam
SPAM

A real example

Something more complex and real-world-ish. The code:

from mando import command, main


@command
def push(repository, all=False, dry_run=False, force=False, thin=False):
    '''Update remote refs along with associated objects.

    :param repository: Repository to push to.
    :param --all: Push all refs.
    :param -n, --dry-run: Dry run.
    :param -f, --force: Force updates.
    :param --thin: Use thin pack.'''

    print ('Pushing to {0}. All: {1}, dry run: {2}, force: {3}, thin: {4}'
           .format(repository, all, dry_run, force, thin))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

mando understands Sphinx-style :param:'s in the docstring, so it creates short options and their help for you.

$ python git.py push -h
usage: git.py push [-h] [--all] [-n] [-f] [--thin] repository

Update remote refs along with associated objects.

positional arguments:
  repository     Repository to push to.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  --all          Push all refs.
  -n, --dry-run  Dry run.
  -f, --force    Force updates.
  --thin         Use thin pack.

Let's try it!

$ python git.py push --all myrepo
Pushing to myrepo. All: True, dry run: False, force: False, thin: False
$ python git.py push --all -f myrepo
Pushing to myrepo. All: True, dry run: False, force: True, thin: False
$ python git.py push --all -fn myrepo
Pushing to myrepo. All: True, dry run: True, force: True, thin: False
$ python git.py push --thin -fn myrepo
Pushing to myrepo. All: False, dry run: True, force: True, thin: True
$ python git.py push --thin
usage: git.py push [-h] [--all] [-n] [-f] [--thin] repository
git.py push: error: too few arguments

Amazed uh? Yes, mando got the short options and the help from the docstring! You can put much more in the docstring, and if that isn't enough, there's an @arg decorator to customize the arguments that get passed to argparse.

Type annotations

mando understands Python 3-style type annotations and will warn the user if the arguments given to a command are of the wrong type.

$ python3 test.py duplicate "test " 5
test test test test test
$ python3 test.py duplicate "test " foo
usage: test.py duplicate [-h] string times
test.py duplicate: error: argument times: invalid int value: 'foo'

Mando has lots of other options. For example, it supports different docstring styles (Sphinx, Google and NumPy), supports shell autocompletion via the argcomplete package and supports custom format classes. For a complete documentation, visit https://mando.readthedocs.org/.