Rename python click argument

Question

I have this chunk of code:

import click
@click.option('--delete_thing', help="Delete some things columns.", default=False)
def cmd_do_this(delete_thing=False):
 print "I deleted the thing."

I would like to rename the option variable in --delete-thing. But python does not allow dashes in variable names. Is there a way to write this kind of code?

import click
@click.option('--delete-thing', help="Delete some things columns.", default=False, store_variable=delete_thing)
 def cmd_do_this(delete_thing=False):
 print "I deleted the thing."

So delete_thing will be set to the value of delete-thing

Answer 1

As gbe's answer says, click will automatically convert - in the cli parameters to _ for the python function parameters.

But you can also explicitly name the python variable to whatever you want. In this example, it converts --delete-thing to new_var_name:

import click
@click.command()
@click.option('--delete-thing', 'new_var_name')
def cmd_do_this(new_var_name):
 print(f"I deleted the thing: {new_var_name}")

Answer 2

By default, click will intelligently map intra-option commandline hyphens to underscores so your code should work as-is. This is used in the click documentation, e.g., in the Choice example. If --delete-thing is intended to be a boolean option, you may also want to make it a boolean argument.

• kaligne: And it's true! Though I understood the take home message, your second link probably points to the wrong page.