How to Use pydoc generate documentation for a module with argparse?

Question

I have a python module named LC_cmdline.py with argparse as follows.

import argparse
import getpass

def get_pass():
    return getpass.getpass("Password: ")
def default_pass():
    return ''

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-u', default='', type=str, metavar='username', dest='username', help="Username for the database")
parser.add_argument('-p', action='store_const', const=get_pass, default=default_pass, dest='get_pass', help="Password for the database")

args = parser.parse_args()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print "username: [%s]"%args.username
    print "password: [%s]"%args.get_pass()

I tried to convert it to a documentation by pydoc using the command python -m pydoc -w LC_cmdline. Then I got this error:

usage: pydoc.py [-h] [-u username] [-p]
pydoc.py: error: unrecognized arguments: -w LC_cmdline
problem in LC_cmdline - <type 'exceptions.SystemExit'>: 2

Is there a way to generate a documentation for a module with arguments like mine by pydoc? Thank you.

BTW, my OS is win7, and my python is 2.7

Answer 1

I'd move parser.parse_args() inside the if, like so:

...
if __name__ == '__main__':
    args = parser.parse_args()
    print "username: [%s]"%args.username
    print "password: [%s]"%args.get_pass()

Result:

$ pydoc -w LC_cmdline
wrote LC_cmdline.html