pyconvcli

A convention based CLI framework for python

This framework builds on the argparse library making it easy to setup and build a cli by convention from code without having to string together the hierarchy yourself. You simpley create a cli project using the cli which is built using the framework itself, and create classes with functions. We utilize the type annotation to configure your cli attributes for you using the same params as the argparse.add_argument function with an expansion of the 'group' attribute to let you assign a parameter to a group. You can create groups using our decorator which adds metadata to the function so that we can assign the parameters to the correct group.

How do I get set up?

step 1

run the install command pip3 install pyconvcli

step 2

run the command to create a new cli project in the directory you want to create it in.

for example

pyconvcli new cli --project_name example --cli_call_word mycli

the usage is as follows

usage: pyconvcli new cli [-h] --project_name PROJECT_NAME
                         [--root_package_name ROOT_PACKAGE_NAME]
                         [--cli_call_word CLI_CALL_WORD] [--version VERSION]
                         [--author AUTHOR] [--author_email AUTHOR_EMAIL]
                         [--description DESCRIPTION]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --project_name PROJECT_NAME
                        the name of your project
  --root_package_name ROOT_PACKAGE_NAME
                        the name of your cli package
  --cli_call_word CLI_CALL_WORD
                        the string that will be added to your path to call
                        your cli
  --version VERSION     the version of your project
  --author AUTHOR       the author of your project
  --author_email AUTHOR_EMAIL
                        the email of the author of your project
  --description DESCRIPTION
                        the description of your project

step 3

in order to create a command you need to create a class in your project that either ends with _CLI in the name or _CLI_ROOT. if it ends with cli the command will be the file path from the root of your project followed by the function name. If it is _CLI_ROOT it will be the function name followed by the root command of your project.

This is an example of the code to add a root command

import time
from pyconvcli import ParserArgType


class Alternative_CLI_ROOT():
    def dance(
        self,
        rythem:ParserArgType(type=int, choices=range(60),dest="rythem",required=True),
        song:str,
        duration:int):
        """
        params 
        rythem: movements per minute
        time: minutes
        song: song to dance to

        """
        start_time = time.time()
        count=0
        print(f'{song} playing.....')
        while time.time()-start_time< (duration*60):
            if(count % 2) == 0:
                print('<("<)')
            else:
                print('(>")>')
            count = count +1
            time.sleep((60/rythem))

You can also optionally add a _cli_path attribut to the class with a value of the string array you want to declare the path as. This will have a higher priority and allow you to declare the path to your action set.

class Testing_CLI():
    _cli_path=['here','testing']
    def testCommand(self,arg1:int,arg2:str,arg3:ParserArgType(type=str,choices=['exclusive','inclusive','indecisive'])):
        print(f'arg1:{arg1}, arg2:{arg2}, arg3:{arg3}')

If you need a group created you can creat them through an annotation like this. Note that you tie the params to the group by matching the name, and the group attribute in the parser arg type.

class Groups_CLI():
    _cli_path=['here','custom','groups']
    @ArgGroupsDecorator(ParserArgGroupType(name='required',description="my required group"), ParserArgMutuallyExclusiveType(name='exclusive',required=True))
    def groupsCommand(self,arg1:ParserArgType(group='required'),arg2:ParserArgType(group='exclusive'),arg3:ParserArgType(group='exclusive')):
        print("groups command called")

If you want to create an action for a parser that does a separate piece of work you can use the action annotation as follows

 class Utility_CLI():
    _cli_path=[]
    
    @ActionArguement()
    def version(self):
        print(pkg_resources.get_distribution("pyconvcli").version)

the previous example appends a --version action to the root of your cli. this runs independently or could be thought of as in parallel with any other actions you call in the same parser. for example if you have the code3 belo and ran the test command with the additional --version parameter the version function would activate when your parser runs and then the testCommand function would run after.

class Utility_CLI():
    _cli_path=[]
    
    @ActionArguement()
    def version(self):
    print(pkg_resources.get_distribution("pyconvcli").version)
     
    def testCommand(self,arg1:int,arg2:str,arg3:ParserArgType(type=str,choices=['exclusive','inclusive','indecisive'])):
        print(f'arg1:{arg1}, arg2:{arg2}, arg3:{arg3}')

The App

after installing your cli you will be able to run it as an application as well by running the entrypoint command to run your cli with the -app postfix. This will open a gui that will allow you to select your commands from dropdowns and enter values in form fields. You will have the option of calling the command from the app or copying it to the clipboard to be pasted into the terminal later. The app handles any needed escaping of characters for your call.

Who do I talk to?

• Repo owner or admin joshualepinski@gmail.com