2-Minute Guide: argparse — CLI Arguments for Python Scripts (2026)

2-Minute Guide: argparse — CLI Arguments for Python Scripts

When writing Python scripts, it's often necessary to accept command-line arguments to make them more flexible and user-friendly. The argparse module is a built-in Python library that makes it easy to parse command-line arguments.

Minimal Example

Here's a minimal example of using argparse to accept two command-line arguments: --name and --count:

python
import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('--name', help='Your name')
parser.add_argument('--count', type=int, help='Number of times to greet')

args = parser.parse_args()

print(f'Hello, {args.name}!'

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