[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Trenton Bricken]

Trenton Bricken  added the comment:

Thanks for all of these replies. 

The functionality is that the user adds --flag True False and then all of the 
other parameters are run with True. And then again with False. 

I thought this was a bug because of the confusing type=bool behavior. But it 
certainly isn't a big deal and it seems like you are already aware of it. 

Thanks for all of your open source contributions and help.

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Josh Rosenberg]

Change by Josh Rosenberg :


--
resolution:  -> duplicate
stage:  -> resolved
status: open -> closed
superseder:  -> ArgumentParser should support bool type according to truth 
values

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Mark Dickinson]

Change by Mark Dickinson :


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Removed message: https://bugs.python.org/msg359060

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Mark Dickinson]

Mark Dickinson  added the comment:

This looks like a duplicate of #37564.

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nosy: +mark.dickinson

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[paul j3]

paul j3  added the comment:

The rejected boolean type proposal:

https://bugs.python.org/issue37564

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[paul j3]

paul j3  added the comment:

Despite the name, the 'type' parameter specifies a function, not a Python 
class.  

The only string that produces False is the empty one: bool('').  So 'type=bool' 
is valid Python, even if it isn't useful.

With `nargs='+'` there's no problem with providing strings like 'False', 
'true', 'no', 'oui', 'niet', but if you want to convert those to boolean 
True/False values, you need to write your own 'type' function.


There was a recent bug/issue that proposed providing such a function (or 
importing it from another module), and shadowing the existing 'bool' function, 
but that has been rejected (I think).  It isn't really needed, and the proposed 
solution was too language specific.

Seems to me that expecting your user to provide an open ended list of 'True 
False False True' strings would be rather confusing, or at least require a 
complicated 'help' string.  In any case it's not a common enough case to 
require any changes to the core argparse functionality.

In sum, it isn't clear what the bug is, or what patch you expect.  This sounds 
more like a StackOverflow question, than a bug report.

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Trenton Bricken]

Trenton Bricken  added the comment:

Thank you for your quick and helpful reply. 

The problem with your solution is twofold: 
1. it adds some cognitive load in needing to remember whether or not the flag 
defaults to True or False and thus whether or not you need to add it. It is 
easier for me to have everything as a flag with a value that follows. 
2. More importantly, I am using argparse for trying lots of different 
combinations of inputs to a function so I pass them in as a list and then 
permute the possible values for each input. 

For example: --flag1 a b
--flag2 c d
 
I want to then run a command with the parameter combinations: 
a, c; a, d; b, c; b, d;

And I don't think store_true store_false would allow me to pass in having 
combinations of True and False like --flag True False would. 

I am fine now with my current work around, but was very confused for some time 
why my flag would be true when I set it to false. And think this is a 
counterintuitive pitfall other developers can fall into.

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Karthikeyan Singaravelan]

Karthikeyan Singaravelan  added the comment:

It seems like this is a common problem : 
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15008758/parsing-boolean-values-with-argparse
 . I guess you want to store verbose=True when --verbose is passed and 
verbose=False when --verbose is not passed where store_true might help.

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nosy: +paul.j3, rhettinger, xtreak

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Trenton Bricken]

Trenton Bricken  added the comment:

Update: 

I was being dumb before, the problem still remains but my work around 
previously was wrong. This is the new workaround: 

def buildBool(arg):
if arg == 'False':
return False
else:
return True

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[issue39167] argparse boolean type bug

[Trenton Bricken]

New submission from Trenton Bricken :

This is a bug with argparse. 

Say I have:

parser.add_argument('--verbose', type=bool, action='store', nargs='+',
default = [False],
help='turns on verbosity')

If in the command line I have "--verbose False' the default will then evaluate 
to True and return the value "True" rather than the value of "False" that I 
tried to set it to!

When a developer has lots of arguments to pass in, they may not remember if an 
argument defaults to False or True. Setting the value to False and having it 
then return True is very confusing and should not occur. 

Right now I have a work-around where I have a new type=buildBool where:

def buildBool(arg):
   return bool(arg)

and do:

parser.add_argument('--verbose', type=buildBool, action='store', nargs='+',
default = ['False'],
help='turns on verbosity')

but this means I have to have this type and have my default value be a string 
which is suboptimal and this bug remains a trap for other developers.

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messages: 359045
nosy: Trenton Bricken
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: argparse boolean type bug
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.7

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