I decided I could be more articulate. I hope this helps. I'm writing a program that needs to process options. Due to the nature of the program with its large number of commandline options, I would like to write a callback to be set inside add_option.
Something like this: parser.add_option("-b", action="callback", callback=optionhandlr, dest='b') The Cookbook almost takes me there with a callback function that only works for an option called b that takes no argument: def optionhndlr(option, opt_str, value, parser): if parser.values.b: raise OptionValueError("can't use %s after -b" % opt_str) setattr(parser.values, option.dest, 1) but warns that "it needs a bit of work: the error message and the flag that it sets must be generalized". I do need to do my option processing in an option processor with many options and I'd both like to do it in one method (if possible) and learn a trick or two while I'm at it. Is it possible to have a single callback that could be used in the general case? All I need is to be taught how to fish... TIA -- Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana. Stranger things have .0. happened but none stranger than this. Does your driver's license say Organ ..0 Donor?Black holes are where God divided by zero. Listen to me! We are all- 000 individuals! What if this weren't a hypothetical question? steveo at syslang.net -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list