Adding a parameter/argument to a script

[jehoshua]

Have been running tests with small WAV files, and need to remove the hard code reference to a WAV file and add a parameter. Here is the code:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import speech_recognition as sr

# obtain path to "english.wav" in the same folder as this script
from os import path
AUDIO_FILE = path.join(path.dirname(path.realpath(__file__)), "english.wav")
# AUDIO_FILE = path.join(path.dirname(path.realpath(__file__)), "french.aiff")
# AUDIO_FILE = path.join(path.dirname(path.realpath(__file__)), "chinese.flac")

# use the audio file as the audio source
r = sr.Recognizer()
with sr.AudioFile(AUDIO_FILE) as source:
    audio = r.record(source)  # read the entire audio file

# recognize speech using Sphinx
try:
    print("Sphinx thinks you said " + r.recognize_sphinx(audio))
except sr.UnknownValueError:
    print("Sphinx could not understand audio")
except sr.RequestError as e:
    print("Sphinx error; {0}".format(e))

From another script, I can see by the code at the bottom, how to determine if any arguments are present. I'm just not too sure how to use similar code and not have the WAV file hard coded. Needs to be parsed as an argument/parameter. Here is that other code snippet:

def main(args):
    if len(args) != 2:
        sys.stderr.write(
            'Usage: example.py <aggressiveness> <path to wav file>\n')
        sys.exit(1)
    audio, sample_rate = read_wave(args[1])
    vad = webrtcvad.Vad(int(args[0]))
    frames = frame_generator(30, audio, sample_rate)
    frames = list(frames)
    segments = vad_collector(sample_rate, 30, 300, vad, frames)
    for i, segment in enumerate(segments):
        path = 'chunk-%002d.wav' % (i,)
        print(' Writing %s' % (path,))
        write_wave(path, segment, sample_rate)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main(sys.argv[1:])

[egslava]

Support, you have a param '--filename'. Than you can get its value this way:

import sys
print sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1]

If you run python script.py --filename name.wav it prints name.wav.

[jehoshua]

Support, you have a param '--filename'. Than you can get its value this way:

import sys
print sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1]

If you run python script.py --filename name.wav it prints name.wav.

Thanks, and if I run in python2 it's okay, but in python3, it gives an error

print sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1]
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Python3 = 3.5.2
Python2 = 2.7.12

[Gribouillis]

The simplest way is to use module argparse from the standard library. It's only a few lines of code, and there is great benefit for your future scripts.

[jehoshua]

The simplest way is to use module argparse from the standard library. It's only a few lines of code, and there is great benefit for your future scripts.

Thanks, I was just looking at https://docs.python.org/3/howto/argparse.html

[snippsat]

A couple of alternatives,a demo with Click and Fire.

[egslava]

...
if I run in python2 it's okay, but in python3, it gives an error
...

It's ok, just for python 3 you need to use braces:

import sys
print ( sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1] )

I don't have python 3 now to check it, so I'd appreciate if you tell me whether it works in Python 3 :)

[Gribouillis]

A couple of alternatives,a demo with Click and Fire.

I like argh, but for simple scripts such as this one, the built-in argparse module works very well.

[wavic]

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()

parser.add_argument('filename', type=argparse.FileType('br'), help='File name') # open the directly for reading
# parser.add_argument('filename', help='File name') # or just as an argument

args = parser.parse_args()

while True:
    chunk = args.filename.read(4096) # it is opened for reading already by argparse

    if chunk:
        # do something
    else:
        break

## if it is just an argument
# with open(args.filename, 'br') as in_file:
    # read it
    # do something

This will make the file name argument mandatory.
The good thing? You have a help system so you could just:

$ script.py -h

It works even if you miss the 'help' argument while adding the argument to the parser.
Or if you miss the argument it will throw the proper message.

[jehoshua]

A couple of alternatives,a demo with Click and Fire.

Thanks, I will keep that in mind. :)

I don't have python 3 now to check it, so I'd appreciate if you tell me whether it works in Python 3 :)

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import sys

print ( sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1] )

Output:
$ python3 test3.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test3.py", line 5, in <module>
    print ( sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1] )
ValueError: '--filename' is not in list
 
$ python3 test3.py output3.wav
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test3.py", line 5, in <module>
    print ( sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1] )
ValueError: '--filename' is not in list

$ python3 test3.py --filename  output3.wav
output3.wav

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()

parser.add_argument('filename', type=argparse.FileType('br'), help='File name') # open the directly for reading
# parser.add_argument('filename', help='File name') # or just as an argument

args = parser.parse_args()

while True:
    chunk = args.filename.read(4096) # it is opened for reading already by argparse

    if chunk:
        # do something
    else:
        break

## if it is just an argument
# with open(args.filename, 'br') as in_file:
    # read it
    # do something

This will make the file name argument mandatory.
The good thing? You have a help system so you could just:

$ script.py -h

It works even if you miss the 'help' argument while adding the argument to the parser.
Or if you miss the argument it will throw the proper message.

Thanks for the argparse example. I have modified it to include the code for speech recognition

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import argparse
import speech_recognition as sr
import sys

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
 
parser.add_argument('filename', type=argparse.FileType('br'), help='File name') # open the directly for reading
# parser.add_argument('filename', help='File name') # or just as an argument
 
args = parser.parse_args()
 
while True:
    #print ( sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1] )
    print("The audio filename is %s." % args.filename)
    chunk = args.filename.read(4096) # it is opened for reading already by argparse
    AUDIO_FILE = args.filename
    
    if chunk:
        # use the audio file as the audio source
        r = sr.Recognizer()
        with sr.AudioFile(AUDIO_FILE) as source:
            audio = r.record(source)  # read the entire audio file

        # recognize speech using Sphinx
        try:
            print("Sphinx thinks you said " + r.recognize_sphinx(audio))
        except sr.UnknownValueError:
            print("Sphinx could not understand audio")
        except sr.RequestError as e:
            print("Sphinx error; {0}".format(e))
  
    else:
        break
 
## if it is just an argument
# with open(args.filename, 'br') as in_file:
    # read it
    # do something

The help works fine

Output:
$ python3 test2.py -h
usage: test2.py [-h] filename

positional arguments:
  filename    File name

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

when I ran that test script, there were many errors, but I feel 99% of them are because the filename is not being evaluated correctly. (Most of the errors came from the speech recognition side of things).

Output:
$ python3 test2.py  output3.wav
The audio filename is <_io.BufferedReader name='output3.wav'>.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/********/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/speech_recognition/__init__.py", line 203, in __enter__
    self.audio_reader = wave.open(self.filename_or_fileobject, "rb")
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/wave.py", line 499, in open
    return Wave_read(f)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/wave.py", line 163, in __init__
    self.initfp(f)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/wave.py", line 130, in initfp
    raise Error('file does not start with RIFF id')
wave.Error: file does not start with RIFF id

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/********/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/speech_recognition/__init__.py", line 208, in __enter__
    self.audio_reader = aifc.open(self.filename_or_fileobject, "rb")
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/aifc.py", line 890, in open
    return Aifc_read(f)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/aifc.py", line 340, in __init__
    self.initfp(f)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/aifc.py", line 305, in initfp
    raise Error('file does not start with FORM id')
aifc.Error: file does not start with FORM id

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/********/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/speech_recognition/__init__.py", line 234, in __enter__
    self.audio_reader = aifc.open(aiff_file, "rb")
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/aifc.py", line 890, in open
    return Aifc_read(f)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/aifc.py", line 340, in __init__
    self.initfp(f)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/aifc.py", line 303, in initfp
    chunk = Chunk(file)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/chunk.py", line 63, in __init__
    raise EOFError
EOFError

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test2.py", line 23, in <module>
    with sr.AudioFile(AUDIO_FILE) as source:
  File "/home/********/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/speech_recognition/__init__.py", line 236, in __enter__
    raise ValueError("Audio file could not be read as PCM WAV, AIFF/AIFF-C, or Native FLAC; check if file is corrupted or in another format")
ValueError: Audio file could not be read as PCM WAV, AIFF/AIFF-C, or Native FLAC; check if file is corrupted or in another format

Have done a fair bit of looking at other examples of argparse, but still not able to get the variable args.filename evaluated properly. Yet the one liner with using the sys module works okay.

---

Hmm, I changed 2 instances of "args.filename" to "args.filename.name" , and it works.

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import argparse
import speech_recognition as sr
import sys

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
 
parser.add_argument('filename', type=argparse.FileType('br'), help='File name') # open the directly for reading
# parser.add_argument('filename', help='File name') # or just as an argument
 
args = parser.parse_args()
 
while True:
    #print ( sys.argv[sys.argv.index('--filename') + 1] )
    print("The audio filename is %s." % args.filename.name)
    chunk = args.filename.read(4096) # it is opened for reading already by argparse
    AUDIO_FILE = args.filename.name
    
    if chunk:
        # use the audio file as the audio source
        r = sr.Recognizer()
        with sr.AudioFile(AUDIO_FILE) as source:
            audio = r.record(source)  # read the entire audio file

        # recognize speech using Sphinx
        try:
            print("Sphinx thinks you said " + r.recognize_sphinx(audio))
        except sr.UnknownValueError:
            print("Sphinx could not understand audio")
        except sr.RequestError as e:
            print("Sphinx error; {0}".format(e))
  
    else:
        break
 
## if it is just an argument
# with open(args.filename, 'br') as in_file:
    # read it
    # do something

but it is stuck in a loop, ..lol. I will see about the 'while' maybe. :)

---

No loop now, and removed some code, ..short and simple

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import argparse
import speech_recognition as sr

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('filename', type=argparse.FileType('br'), help='File name') # open the directly for reading
args = parser.parse_args()
 
print("The audio filename is %s." % args.filename.name)
AUDIO_FILE = args.filename.name
    
# use the audio file as the audio source
r = sr.Recognizer()
with sr.AudioFile(AUDIO_FILE) as source:
    audio = r.record(source)  # read the entire audio file

# recognize speech using Sphinx
try:
    print("Sphinx thinks you said " + r.recognize_sphinx(audio))
except sr.UnknownValueError:
    print("Sphinx could not understand audio")
except sr.RequestError as e:
    print("Sphinx error; {0}".format(e))