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<title>6.21.5.1 Adding new types</title>
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<H3><A NAME="SECTION0082151000000000000000"></A><A NAME="optparse-adding-new-types"></A>
<BR>
6.21.5.1 Adding new types
</H3>

<P>
To add new types, you need to define your own subclass of <tt class="module">optparse</tt>'s Option
class.  This class has a couple of attributes that define <tt class="module">optparse</tt>'s types:
<tt class="member">TYPES</tt> and <tt class="member">TYPE_CHECKER</tt>.

<P>
<tt class="member">TYPES</tt> is a tuple of type names; in your subclass, simply define a new
tuple <tt class="member">TYPES</tt> that builds on the standard one.

<P>
<tt class="member">TYPE_CHECKER</tt> is a dictionary mapping type names to type-checking
functions.  A type-checking function has the following signature:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
def check_mytype(option, opt, value)
</pre></div>

<P>
where <code>option</code> is an <tt class="class">Option</tt> instance, <code>opt</code> is an option string
(e.g., <code>"-f"</code>), and <code>value</code> is the string from the command line that
must be checked and converted to your desired type.  <code>check_mytype()</code>
should return an object of the hypothetical type <code>mytype</code>.  The value
returned by a type-checking function will wind up in the OptionValues
instance returned by <tt class="method">OptionParser.parse_args()</tt>, or be passed to a
callback as the <code>value</code> parameter.

<P>
Your type-checking function should raise OptionValueError if it
encounters any problems.  OptionValueError takes a single string
argument, which is passed as-is to OptionParser's <tt class="method">error()</tt> method,
which in turn prepends the program name and the string <code>"error:"</code> and
prints everything to stderr before terminating the process.

<P>
Here's a silly example that demonstrates adding a <code>complex</code> option
type to parse Python-style complex numbers on the command line.  (This
is even sillier than it used to be, because <tt class="module">optparse</tt> 1.3 added built-in
support for complex numbers, but never mind.)

<P>
First, the necessary imports:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
from copy import copy
from optparse import Option, OptionValueError
</pre></div>

<P>
You need to define your type-checker first, since it's referred to later
(in the <tt class="member">TYPE_CHECKER</tt> class attribute of your Option subclass):
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
def check_complex(option, opt, value):
    try:
        return complex(value)
    except ValueError:
        raise OptionValueError(
            "option %s: invalid complex value: %r" % (opt, value))
</pre></div>

<P>
Finally, the Option subclass:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
class MyOption (Option):
    TYPES = Option.TYPES + ("complex",)
    TYPE_CHECKER = copy(Option.TYPE_CHECKER)
    TYPE_CHECKER["complex"] = check_complex
</pre></div>

<P>
(If we didn't make a <tt class="function">copy()</tt> of <tt class="member">Option.TYPE_CHECKER</tt>, we would end
up modifying the <tt class="member">TYPE_CHECKER</tt> attribute of <tt class="module">optparse</tt>'s Option class.
This being Python, nothing stops you from doing that except good manners
and common sense.)

<P>
That's it!  Now you can write a script that uses the new option type
just like any other <tt class="module">optparse</tt>-based script, except you have to instruct your
OptionParser to use MyOption instead of Option:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
parser = OptionParser(option_class=MyOption)
parser.add_option("-c", type="complex")
</pre></div>

<P>
Alternately, you can build your own option list and pass it to
OptionParser; if you don't use <tt class="method">add_option()</tt> in the above way, you
don't need to tell OptionParser which option class to use:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
option_list = [MyOption("-c", action="store", type="complex", dest="c")]
parser = OptionParser(option_list=option_list)
</pre></div>

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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span>
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