OptionContext#

class OptionContext(*args, **kwargs)#

A GOptionContext struct defines which options are accepted by the commandline option parser. The struct has only private fields and should not be directly accessed.

Methods#

class OptionContext

add_group(group: OptionGroup) → None#

Adds a OptionGroup to the context, so that parsing with context will recognize the options in the group. Note that this will take ownership of the group and thus the group should not be freed.

Added in version 2.6.

Parameters:: group – the group to add

add_main_entries(entries: list[OptionEntry], translation_domain: str | None = None) → None#

A convenience function which creates a main group if it doesn’t exist, adds the entries to it and sets the translation domain.

Added in version 2.6.

Parameters:

entries – a None-terminated array of OptionEntry
translation_domain – a translation domain to use for translating the --help output for the options in entries with gettext(), or None

free() → None#

Frees context and all the groups which have been added to it.

Please note that parsed arguments need to be freed separately (see OptionEntry).

Added in version 2.6.

get_description() → str#: Returns the description. See set_description().

Added in version 2.12.

get_help(main_help: bool, group: OptionGroup | None = None) → str#

Returns a formatted, translated help text for the given context. To obtain the text produced by --help, call g_option_context_get_help (context, TRUE, NULL). To obtain the text produced by --help-all, call g_option_context_get_help (context, FALSE, NULL). To obtain the help text for an option group, call g_option_context_get_help (context, FALSE, group).

Added in version 2.14.

Parameters:

main_help – if True, only include the main group
group – the OptionGroup to create help for, or None

get_help_enabled() → bool#: Returns whether automatic --help generation is turned on for context. See set_help_enabled().

Added in version 2.6.

get_ignore_unknown_options() → bool#: Returns whether unknown options are ignored or not. See set_ignore_unknown_options().

Added in version 2.6.

get_main_group() → OptionGroup#: Returns a pointer to the main group of context.

Added in version 2.6.

get_strict_posix() → bool#

Returns whether strict POSIX code is enabled.

See set_strict_posix() for more information.

Added in version 2.44.

get_summary() → str#: Returns the summary. See set_summary().

Added in version 2.12.

parse(argv: list[str] = Ellipsis) → tuple[bool, list[str]]#

Parses the command line arguments, recognizing options which have been added to context. A side-effect of calling this function is that set_prgname() will be called.

If the parsing is successful, any parsed arguments are removed from the array and argc and argv are updated accordingly. A ‘–’ option is stripped from argv unless there are unparsed options before and after it, or some of the options after it start with ‘-’. In case of an error, argc and argv are left unmodified.

If automatic --help support is enabled (see set_help_enabled()), and the argv array contains one of the recognized help options, this function will produce help output to stdout and call exit (0).

Note that function depends on the current locale for automatic character set conversion of string and filename arguments.

Added in version 2.6.

Parameters:: argv – a pointer to the array of command line arguments

parse_strv(arguments: list[str] = Ellipsis) → tuple[bool, list[str]]#

Parses the command line arguments.

This function is similar to parse() except that it respects the normal memory rules when dealing with a strv instead of assuming that the passed-in array is the argv of the main function.

In particular, strings that are removed from the arguments list will be freed using free().

On Windows, the strings are expected to be in UTF-8. This is in contrast to parse() which expects them to be in the system codepage, which is how they are passed as argv to main(). See g_win32_get_command_line() for a solution.

This function is useful if you are trying to use OptionContext with GApplication.

Added in version 2.40.

Parameters:: arguments – a pointer to the command line arguments (which must be in UTF-8 on Windows). Starting with GLib 2.62, arguments can be None, which matches parse().

set_description(description: str | None = None) → None#

Adds a string to be displayed in --help output after the list of options. This text often includes a bug reporting address.

Note that the summary is translated (see set_translate_func()).

Added in version 2.12.

Parameters:: description – a string to be shown in --help output after the list of options, or None

set_help_enabled(help_enabled: bool) → None#

Enables or disables automatic generation of --help output. By default, parse() recognizes --help, -h, -?, --help-all and --help-groupname and creates suitable output to stdout.

Added in version 2.6.

Parameters:: help_enabled – True to enable --help, False to disable it

set_ignore_unknown_options(ignore_unknown: bool) → None#

Sets whether to ignore unknown options or not. If an argument is ignored, it is left in the argv array after parsing. By default, parse() treats unknown options as error.

This setting does not affect non-option arguments (i.e. arguments which don’t start with a dash). But note that GOption cannot reliably determine whether a non-option belongs to a preceding unknown option.

Added in version 2.6.

Parameters:: ignore_unknown – True to ignore unknown options, False to produce an error when unknown options are met

set_main_group(group: OptionGroup) → None#

Sets a OptionGroup as main group of the context. This has the same effect as calling add_group(), the only difference is that the options in the main group are treated differently when generating --help output.

Added in version 2.6.

Parameters:: group – the group to set as main group

set_strict_posix(strict_posix: bool) → None#

Sets strict POSIX mode.

By default, this mode is disabled.

In strict POSIX mode, the first non-argument parameter encountered (eg: filename) terminates argument processing. Remaining arguments are treated as non-options and are not attempted to be parsed.

If strict POSIX mode is disabled then parsing is done in the GNU way where option arguments can be freely mixed with non-options.

As an example, consider “ls foo -l”. With GNU style parsing, this will list “foo” in long mode. In strict POSIX style, this will list the files named “foo” and “-l”.

It may be useful to force strict POSIX mode when creating “verb style” command line tools. For example, the “gsettings” command line tool supports the global option “–schemadir” as well as many subcommands (“get”, “set”, etc.) which each have their own set of arguments. Using strict POSIX mode will allow parsing the global options up to the verb name while leaving the remaining options to be parsed by the relevant subcommand (which can be determined by examining the verb name, which should be present in argv[1] after parsing).

Added in version 2.44.

Parameters:: strict_posix – the new value

set_summary(summary: str | None = None) → None#

Adds a string to be displayed in --help output before the list of options. This is typically a summary of the program functionality.

Note that the summary is translated (see set_translate_func() and set_translation_domain()).

Added in version 2.12.

Parameters:: summary – a string to be shown in --help output before the list of options, or None

set_translate_func(func: Callable[[str, Any], str] | None = None, data: Any = None) → None#

Sets the function which is used to translate the contexts user-visible strings, for --help output. If func is None, strings are not translated.

Note that option groups have their own translation functions, this function only affects the parameter_string (see new()), the summary (see set_summary()) and the description (see set_description()).

If you are using gettext(), you only need to set the translation domain, see set_translation_domain().

Added in version 2.12.

Parameters:

func – the TranslateFunc, or None
data – user data to pass to func, or None

set_translation_domain(domain: str) → None#

A convenience function to use gettext() for translating user-visible strings.

Added in version 2.12.

Parameters:: domain – the domain to use