this is my first time using Getopt in python and I came across a problem:
opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:], "hrs", ["help","random","somethingelse"])
for o, a in opts:
if o in "-h" or "--help":
help()
elif o in "-r" or "--random":
random()
elif o in "-s" or "--somethingelse":
somethingelse()
If I were to type: python test.py -r or python test.py -s. It would still go to the help function instead of going to the random() or somethingelse() function.
You need to put the possible options in lists or tuples:
opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:], "hrs", ["help","random","somethingelse"])
for o, a in opts:
if o in ["-h", "--help"]:
help()
elif o in ["-r", "--random"]:
random()
elif o in ["-s", "--somethingelse"]:
somethingelse()
The way you currently have it, your first condition if o in "-h" or "--help": is perfectly valid Python, but it will always be True, because what you are actually testing is the "truthiness" of o in "-h" and "--help" respectively. This is always True because even if o in "-h" is False, "--help" is always True since it is a non-empty string.
On the other hand, if you test if o in ["-h", "--help"]:, this will check if o is one of the items in the list ["-h", "--help"], and will only return True if it is.