ArgAlias

Aliases for arguments in Python CLI utilities (supports argparse, Typer, Click, and similar tools).

This tool is for those who agree that p sh X is shorter then project show X.

You configure which canonical CLI arguments you expect, and what aliases are allowed (e.g. for the canonical argument "show" good aliases are "sh" and "get").

If a canonical name is configured with a prefix, aliases will be resolved only if they follow configured prefix from the first argument.

Add aliases to your argparse, Click, or Typer project in 10 minutes!

Installation

pip3 install argalias

How to use

When you add aliases, the first element is either a str (the canonical name to which the alias will be resolved to) or a List[str] containing prefixes with canonical name.

Each element in the prefix list can be either a simple string (a parameter), * (matches any value of parameter) or values separated by the | symbol.

alias is main method, it expects 3 arguments: list of aliases, canonical namd and prefix (default: None, which means alias will be applied to first argument)

from argalias import ArgAlias

aa = ArgAlias()

# The script expects "employee" as the first parameter, can be aliased as "emp" or "e" 
aa.alias(["emp", "e"], "employee")

# same for "project"
aa.alias(["proj", "p"], "project")

# or even simpler (if only one alias)
aa.alias("p", "project")

# The script expects "show" parameter anywhere, and it can be aliased as "sh", "s" or even "get"
# Be careful with '**' because: script.py sh character sh holmes 
# will be (possible wrongly) translated to: script.py show character show holmes 
aa.alias(['sh', 's', 'get'], "show", prefix="**")


# The script expects "create" parameter after "employee" or "project". Can be aliased as "cr" or "c"
# Note: this rule should go AFTER p=project and e=employee rules, otherwise real prefix "p" will not match required prefix "project"
aa.alias(["cr", "c"], "create", prefix=["employee|project"])

# The script expects "delete" as the second parameter after any parameter, can be aliased as "del" or "d"
# pr del X, employee d X and even anything d X will work.
aa.alias(["del", "d"], "delete", prefix="*")
aa.parse()
# sys.argv now has all aliases resolved, e.g. "sh" resolved to "show"
print(sys.argv)

# now all aliases in sys.argv are resolved and you can do your argparse or click or typer parsing

You can find examples using argparse, Click, and Typer in examples/.

Results:

p sh Something -> project show Something
project cr Mayhem -> project create Mayhem

These aliases will not be replaced:

sh emp John ("sh" resolved to "show" but "emp" will not be resolved: not a first argument)
zzz cr xxx ("cr" will not be resolved: not after employee or project)
aaa bbb del ("del" will not be resolved: prefix is "aaa", "bbb" - two elements, but "*" matches only one element)

Might be replaced incorrectly:

project create sh (You want to create a project named "sh", but "sh" will be replaced with "show" because the alias does not specify any prefix requirements.)

Optional arguments

Optional arguments can make a problems while checking prefixes, e.g. script.py -v p del X will not match ["project"] prefix, because first argument is "-v", not "p". Here skip_flags() and nargs() comes to help.

# with skip_flags ArgAlias will ignore any unknown arguments starting with "-", e.g. "-v", or  "--some-option"
aa.skip_flags()

# this will ignore --xy 11 22 
aa.nargs('--xy', nargs=2)

# this will ginore --level 123 (default value for nargs is 1)
aa.nargs('--level')

Replacing alias to many words

You can replace alias into many words, just assign canonical a list.

aa.alias(["ml", "mls"], ["metrics", "list"])

now script.py ml will be replaced to script.py metrics list

See argparse_ex1.py for a real example. You do not need to use skip_flags or nargs:

1. If you replace parameter anywhere in args (like "show" in example above), not using prefix.
2. If options will go after alias (e.g. script.py project del X --verbose)
3. If you do not use options at all (e.g. no -v or --verbose or --level DEBUG)