Argparse: wildcards processing

[2411d3b6-f96a-4464-9e72-e121c9e9f1ca]

BPO	42220
Nosy	@andrewerf

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GitHub fields: ```python assignee = None closed_at = None created_at = labels = ['3.7', '3.8', '3.9', '3.10', 'type-feature', 'library'] title = 'Argparse: wildcards processing' updated_at = user = 'https://github.com/andrewerf' ``` bugs.python.org fields: ```python activity = actor = 'Andrew' assignee = 'none' closed = False closed_date = None closer = None components = ['Library (Lib)'] creation = creator = 'Andrew' dependencies = [] files = [] hgrepos = [] issue_num = 42220 keywords = [] message_count = 1.0 messages = ['380076'] nosy_count = 1.0 nosy_names = ['Andrew'] pr_nums = [] priority = 'normal' resolution = None stage = None status = 'open' superseder = None type = 'enhancement' url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue42220' versions = ['Python 3.6', 'Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9', 'Python 3.10'] ```

[2411d3b6-f96a-4464-9e72-e121c9e9f1ca]

It's known that Linux and Windows shells process wildcards like '*' and '?' differently. Linux shell usually expands wildcards so the application gets list of files. In contrast, Windows passes the wildcards to application. So in cross-platform applications we have to expand wildcards manually only for windows. It may not be beautiful since it's usually not part of program's logic and seems kinda of arguments processing. Could this problem be solved via adding optional functionality to argparse library? For instance some option 'expand_wildcards' in ArgumentParser constructor with default value False (in order to not break compatibility)?

[serhiy-storchaka]

You can simply expand wildcards in sys.argv:

argv = [x for y in sys.argv for x in (glob.glob(y) or [y])]
parser.parse_args(argv)

This is what the Unix shell does.

Or you can process only arguments for which this makes sense, after parsing them with argparse. In any case, only you know what arguments should be processed, so you should write some code. Specifying an option for argparse is also writing a code, but this is less flexible.