Using python argparse arguments as variable values within a json file - Sta... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53973531/using-python-argparse-ar...

Using python argparse arguments as variable values

within a json file
Asked 1 year, 8 months ago Active 1 year, 8 months ago Viewed 483 times

1 of 4 8/30/2020, 4:54 PM
Using python argparse arguments as variable values within a json file - Sta... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53973531/using-python-argparse-ar...

I've googled this quite a bit and am unable to find helpful insight. Basically, I need to take the
user input from my argparse arguments from a python script (as shown below) and plug those
0 values into a json file (packerfile.json) located in the same working directory. I have been
experimenting with subprocess , invoke and plumbum libraries without being able to "find the
shoe that fits".

From the following code, I have removed all except for the arguments as to clean up:

#!/usr/bin/python
import os, sys, subprocess
import argparse
import json
from invoke import run
import packer

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser._positionals.title = 'Positional arguments'
parser._optionals.title = 'Optional arguments'
parser.add_argument("--access_key",
required=False,
action='store',
default=os.environ['AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'],
help="AWS access key id")
parser.add_argument("--secret_key",
required=False,
action='store',
default=os.environ['AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'],
help="AWS secret access key")
parser.add_argument("--region",
required=False,
action='store',
help="AWS region")
parser.add_argument("--guest_os_type",
required=True,
action='store',
help="Operating system to install on guest machine")
parser.add_argument("--ami_id",
required=False,
help="AMI ID for image base")
parser.add_argument("--instance_type",
required=False,
action='store',
help="Type of instance determines overall performance (e.g.
t2.medium)")
parser.add_argument("--ssh_key_path",
required=False,

json example code:

{
"variables": {
"aws_access_key": "{{ env `AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID` }}",
"aws_secret_key": "{{ env `AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY` }}",
"magic_reference_date": "{{ isotime \"2006-01-02\" }}",
"aws_region": "{{ env 'AWS_REGION' }}",
"aws_ami_id": "ami-036affea69a1101c9",

2 of 4 8/30/2020, 4:54 PM
Using python argparse arguments as variable values within a json file - Sta... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53973531/using-python-argparse-ar...

After parse_args() , print(args) to see what the parser has produced. print(vars(args)) will
show the same thing as a dictionary. args,region will be the value parsed as region . – hpaulj Dec
29 '18 at 22:46

so I am aware of how to print the value of args. The full command that I am providing to the script is:
python packager.py --region us-west-2 --guest_os_type rhel7 --ssh_key_name test_key and
the printed results are {'access_key': 'REDACTED', 'secret_key': 'REDACTED', 'region': 'us-
west-2', 'guest_os_type': 'rhel7', 'ami_id': None, 'instance_type': None,
'ssh_key_path': '/Users/REDACTEDt/.ssh', 'ssh_key_name': 'test_key'} .. what i need is to
import thos values into the packerfile.json variables list.. preferably in a way that i can reuse it (so
it musn't overwrite the file) – aphexlog Dec 29 '18 at 23:13

This is really a packer issue, not an argparse one. The parser gives you access, in your Python
script, to a set of variables (or call them attributes). You could collect those values in a JSON
compatible dictionary, and use the standard json module to dump that as a string or file. But whether
that helps with packer I don't know. – hpaulj Dec 30 '18 at 0:53

What do you think about just treating packer as though I’m simply dealing with json... that is what I’m
trying to do.. now I know that packer gives me the ability to have my variables located inside of a
different json file... so I was thinking of just generating a json file with the py script into the current
working directory and using it as the bar.json file. – aphexlog Dec 30 '18 at 0:58

If you are wondering about my use case... I’m trying to make it so that I can have a single script that
will apply any value to a packer variable and ultimately all of our packer images will be powered via a
single packer json file... thus we would only ever need to version a single json file rather than dozens
of them. – aphexlog Dec 30 '18 at 2:24

2 Answers Active Oldest Votes

I was actually able to come up with a pretty simple solution.

0 args = parser.parse_args()
print(json.dumps(vars(args), indent=4))
s.call("echo '%s' > variables.json && packer build -var-file=variables.json
packerfile.json" % json_formatted, shell=True)

arguments are captured under the variable args and dumped to the output with json.dump
while vars is making sure to also dump the arguments with their key values and I currently
have to run my code with >> vars.json but I'll insert logic to have python handle that.

Note: s == subprocess in s.call

edited Jan 2 '19 at 16:28 answered Dec 31 '18 at 17:40

aphexlog
533 7 27

3 of 4 8/30/2020, 4:54 PM
Using python argparse arguments as variable values within a json file - Sta... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53973531/using-python-argparse-ar...

You might use the __dict__ attribute from the SimpleNamespace that is returned by the
ArgumentParser . Like so:
0
import json
parsed = parser.parse_args()
with open('packerfile.json', 'w') as f:
json.dump(f, parsed.__dict__)

If required, you could use add_argument(dest='attrib_name') to customise attribute names.

answered Dec 29 '18 at 21:51

dr1fter
21 1 2

What is the function of __dict__ ? also, I edited my question to include the important bits of that json
file... hopefully to provide a bit more clarity. – aphexlog Dec 29 '18 at 22:32

vars(foo) (as you found out in your updated solution) is pretty much similar to immediately using
foo.__dict__. So I suppose your approach is cleaner, but mostly equivalent to mine :-) – dr1fter Jan 5
'19 at 11:07

4 of 4 8/30/2020, 4:54 PM