Terminal Usage

To better understand how to use the colorparse command, we will simplify things by separating it in four parts. For the full version of the help menu, you can use the flags -h or --help in the terminal, or go to the help message below.

usage: colorparse [options] [string ...] [input files ...]

options

There are the following options available:

FLAG DESCRIPTION DEFAULT
-t, --true-color Use of RGB values for the color escape sequences. False
-s, --sep Specify what to use, to separate string arguments. ' '
-e, --end Specify what to use at the end of the printed string. '\n'
-o, --output-file Append obtained string to a file (stream). sys.stdout
-O, --overflow Make color codes overflow to other strings. False
-I, --ignore-special Ignore special characters (new line, tab, etc.). False
-S, --strip Remove leading and trailing characters from input file(s). None
-p, --position Place all strings after the nth input file. 0
-h, --help Show a help menu and exit.  
-c, --codes Show the list of color codes and exit.  
-v, --version Show the current version of the module and exit.  

Note

Special characters are: \n (new line), \r (carriage return), \t (horizontal tab), \v (vertical tab), \a (bell), \b (backspace) and \f (formfeed).

Most of these optional arguments work exactly the same as the functions seen before. Here are a few that need some explanation:

  • -I, --ignore-special

    This option will ignore special characters and return the strings as if those characters were escaped.


  • -S, --strip

    Just like the built-in strip method for strings, having the strip flag will remove specified leading and trailing characters from all input files. If no character is given, then the default value None means that whitespaces will be removed.

    To specify which characters to strip, the string should only have them without spaces or separators. For example, having “abc” will remove all combinations of those 3 characters.

    Important

    If possible, this argument will try to use the proceeding value. To use this flag without arguments, it must be either before another flag (e.g. “-I -t”), after another flag’s argument (with the exception of --input-file as we will discuss it later) or at the end of the terminal command.


  • -p, --position

    By default, any strings given will be added before input files. With this option, you can choose in which position those strings should be in relation to the input files. Works like the built-in insert method for lists, including the option to have negative indexes.


string

The input strings (0 or more).

Note

If no arguments are given whatsoever (both the strings and optional arguments), the program will output to the terminal a small help menu about the usage.

input files

There is the option to read and parse color codes from external files. Using either -i or --input-file flags, the proceeding arguments will be considered as the files to open.

Even though this flag can be used before the string arguments (because it’s an optional argument, it can be technically used anywhere), doing so will make the program think that anything that follows said flag, are files to look for, which may not be true if some of those values are actually string arguments. If a file doesn’t exist, it will raise an error, so for this reason, it’s recommended to add this flag at the end or after adding all string arguments.

help message

The following is what the terminal shows when using the help flags:

usage: colorparse [-h] [-c] [-v] [-t] [-s SEP] [-e END] [-O] [-I] [-S [STRIP]]
                  [-p [POSITION]] [-i [INPUT_FILE [INPUT_FILE ...]]]
                  [-o [OUTPUT_FILE]]
                  [string [string ...]]

positional arguments::
  string                one or more input strings.

optional arguments::
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c, --codes           show the available color codes and exit.
  -v, --version         show the current version of this module and exit.
  -t, --true-color      use of RGB values for the ANSI escape sequences.
                        Allowes customized foreground color codes and a more
                        accurate color set (warning: having this option won't
                        work on all terminals as they do not all support true
                        color).
  -s SEP, --sep SEP     specify what string to use, to separate string
                        arguments (default is ' ').
  -e END, --end END     specify what string to use at the end of the printed
                        string (default is '\n')
  -O, --overflow        make colors overflow to other strings if a color code
                        is not finished.
  -I, --ignore-special  tell the parser to ignore special characters like (new
                        line, tab, etc.).
  -S [STRIP], --strip [STRIP]
                        specify which leading and trailing characters to
                        remove from input file(s) (by default removes
                        whitespace if the flag is used).
  -p [POSITION], --position [POSITION]
                        place all strings after the nth input file.
  -i [INPUT_FILE [INPUT_FILE ...]], --input-file [INPUT_FILE [INPUT_FILE ...]]
                        specify one or more files to read the color coded
                        strings from. If a file doesn't exist, an error will
                        be raised. It must be used after any string argument.
  -o [OUTPUT_FILE], --output-file [OUTPUT_FILE]
                        specify an output file to append the resulting string
                        (default is sys.stdout).