Argparse"ArgumentError: argument -h/--help: conflicting option string(s): -h, --help"

Question

Recently, I am learning argparse module, Argument error occurred below the code

import argparse
import sys


class ExecuteShell(object):
    def create(self, args):
        """aaaaaaa"""
        print('aaaaaaa')
        return args

    def list(self, args):
        """ccccccc"""
        print('ccccccc')
        return args

    def delete(self, args):
        """ddddddd"""
        print('ddddddd')
        return args


class TestShell(object):
    def get_base_parser(self):
        parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
        parser.add_argument('-h',
                            '--help',
                            action='store_true',
                            help=argparse.SUPPRESS)

        parser.add_argument('-c', action='store',
                            dest='create_value',
                            help='create a file')

        parser.add_argument('-d', action='store',
                            dest='delete_value',
                            help='delete a file')

        parser.add_argument('-l', action='store',
                            dest='list_value',
                            help='list a dir')

        return parser

    def _find_actions(self, subparsers, actions_module):
        for attr in (action for action in dir(actions_module) if not  action.startswith('__')):
            callback = getattr(actions_module, attr)
            desc = callback.__doc__ or ''
            subparser = subparsers.add_parser(attr, description=desc)
            subparser.add_argument('-h', '--help', action='help',
                                   help=argparse.SUPPRESS)
            self.subcommands[attr] = subparser
            subparser.set_defaults(func=callback)

    def main(self, args):
        parser = self.get_base_parser()
        (options, args) = parser.parse_known_args(args)
        subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(metavar='<subcommand>')
        a = ExecuteShell()
        self.subcommands = {}
        subcommand_parser = self._find_actions(subparsers, a)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    a = TestShell()
    a.main(sys.argv[1:])

Why do I get this error and how can I fix it?

FYI you don't need to add a `--help` option, it will be added automatically — DanielB, Sep 17 '13 at 01:45
If you're trying to *prevent* the `--help` argument being added, see [the docs](http://docs.python.org/dev/library/argparse.html#add-help) — DanielB, Sep 17 '13 at 01:47

score 67 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 17 '13 at 01:48

67

argparse adds --help and -h options by default. If you don't want to use the built-in help feature, you need to disable it with:

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)

See the documentation

answered Sep 17 '13 at 01:48

Barmar

741,623
53
500
612

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 02 '19 at 21:38

11

The same error pop-ups in 2 other scenarios:

1) Repeated code

parser.add_argument('-h',
                        '--help',
                        action='store_true',
                        help=argparse.SUPPRESS)

parser.add_argument('-h',
                        '--help',
                        action='store_true',
                        help=argparse.SUPPRESS)

2) When you execute the code multiple times on the same kernel

I'm leaving it just in case if someone had simillar problem.

answered Jan 02 '19 at 21:38

Jakub Bielan

575
1
5
14

3

Another case that I ran into is when using the `parents` keyword argument, either the parent or the child parser needs to pass in the `add_help=False` keyword argument to prevent this error. – colelemonz Sep 18 '20 at 14:40

Argparse"ArgumentError: argument -h/--help: conflicting option string(s): -h, --help"

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