Python - Verbose Flag

verbose.py

#!/usr/bin/python
import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-v', '--verbose', action='count', default=0)

for c in ['', '-v', '-v -v', '-vv', '-vv -v', '-v -v --verbose -vvvv']:
    print parser.parse_args(c.split())

This code snippet shows how to do verbose arguments with Python argparse. The way to use these is to put the count result in a variable and then use if statements in order to determine the verbosity and print messages accordingly.

Something like:

VERBOSE = parser.verbose
if VERBOSE > 0:
    print "verbose messages"
if VERBOSE > 1:
    print "very verbose messages"
if VERBOSE > 2:
    print "very very verbose messages"