How to specify a parameter of type Array into a Django Command?

Question

It is straight forward creating a string parameter such as --test_email_address below.

   class Command(BaseCommand):
        option_list = BaseCommand.option_list + (
            make_option('--test_email_address',
                        action='store',
                        type="string",
                        dest='test_email_address',
                        help="Specifies test email address."),
            make_option('--vpds',
                        action='store',
                        type='list',           /// ??? Throws exception
                        dest='vpds',
                        help="vpds list [,]"),
        )

But how can I define a list to be passed in? such as [1, 3, 5]

did you try just `list` - without the quotes ? From the [documentation](https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html#type), it looks like `type` can be _any_ valid simple types. The other (hacky) way is to read the arguments as string, and parse it using `ast.literal_eval` or something. — karthikr, Nov 03 '14 at 14:23

Yossi · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-03T14:57:40.487

10

You should add a default value and change the action to 'append':

make_option('--vpds',
            action='append',
            default=[],
            dest='vpds',
            help="vpds list [,]"),

The usage is as follows:

python manage.py my_command --vpds arg1 --vpds arg2

edited Nov 03 '14 at 14:57

answered Nov 03 '14 at 14:24

Yossi

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sorry, thats an interesting idea, but it throws an exception: `optparse.OptionError: option --vpds: invalid option type: 'list'` – Houman Nov 03 '14 at 14:35
Removing `type='list'` fixes it. Updated the answer. – Yossi Nov 03 '14 at 14:57
Can anyone point me out to better info on the `action` values? I'm looking [here](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/howto/custom-management-commands/#accepting-optional-arguments) without finding much info on what the available do or what values I can use – domdambrogia Jul 07 '19 at 00:05
2

@domdambrogia the docs actually say to check https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html#action docs – Eugene K Jul 30 '19 at 10:58

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 30 '23 at 14:53

You can also do it like this:

        parser.add_argument(
            "--vpds",
            nargs="*",
            help="vpds list",
            default=[],
            type=int,
        )

The usage is as follows:

python manage.py my_command --vpds 1 3 5

How to specify a parameter of type Array into a Django Command?

2 Answers2