Adding custom commandline parameters to run if elif in python

Question

I need to add a commandline parameter to a python file (I don't have functions defined inside) so that the parameter would be platform, and then inside the file I need to use:

if platform == iphone:
    <execute some code>
elif platform == ipad:
    <execute some other code>

Basically whats defined under if and elif is the same code but using different resources (images, txt files, etc.). What I need is the possibility to run that file from commandline with the platform parameter like:

python somefile.py -iphone

Now I tried with argparse like that:

platform = argparse.ArgumentParser()
platform.add_argument("iphone")
platform.add_argument("ipad")
platform.parse_args()

But clearly it is wrong and/or is missing something because it doesn't work at all. I'm looking for a simplest possible way to achieve that.

Answer 1

if you pass command as python somefile.py iphone then you can get the arguments passed in terminal with sys.argv. It gives a list of arguments passed with command. In your case sys.argv will return ['somefile.py','iphone'] i.e 0th position will contain program name and from 1st place onwards all the arguments passed.

import sys

platform=sys.argv[1]

if platform == 'iphone':
    <execute some code>
elif platform == 'ipad':
    <execute some other code>