How to Pass Command Line Arguments to Python Script

Written by Rahul, Updated on September 19, 2019

You can easily pass command line arguments to a Python script. In this tutorial, we will help you to read the command line arguments in a Python script.

Below is the sample Python script, which reads the command line arguments and print details. Create a sample script like script.py and copy below content.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys

# Print total number of arguments
print ('Total number of arguments:', format(len(sys.argv)))

# Print all arguments
print ('Argument List:', str(sys.argv))

# Print arguments one by one
print ('First argument:',  str(sys.argv[0]))
print ('Second argument:',  str(sys.argv[1]))
print ('Third argument:',  str(sys.argv[2]))
print ('Fourth argument:',  str(sys.argv[3]))

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys

# Print total number of arguments

print ('Total number of arguments:', format(len(sys.argv)))

# Print all arguments

print ('Argument List:', str(sys.argv))

# Print arguments one by one

print ('First argument:', str(sys.argv[0]))

print ('Second argument:', str(sys.argv[1]))

print ('Third argument:', str(sys.argv[2]))

print ('Fourth argument:', str(sys.argv[3]))

Then execute the above script with command line parameters.

python script.py first 2 third 4.5

You will see the results like below. The first argument is always the script itself.

Total number of arguments: 5
Argument List: ['script.py', 'first', '2', 'third', '4.5']
First argument: script.py
Second argument: first
Third argument: 2
Fourth argument: third

Rahul

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