Python command line file input stream

Question

I am a beginner in python coming from C/C++ background. So I was wondering how I would get my 'main.py' to reconize/use the imput given from a bash shell as:

python main.py < text.txt

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You can use argparse to create an option parser that accepts a file path and opens it.

import argparse

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument('infile', type='open')
    args = parser.parse_args()

    for line in args.infile:
        print line

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()