converting arguments or input numbers

[Skaperen]

you can do that faster as a shell command. i won't be doing that on code that needs to run securely. it will be in code that runs with the credentials of who runs it. if you run it and do that, you'll only be doing it to yourself.

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Besides the questionable use of eval, your code would improve by using a library to parse command line arguments, typically argparse of one of its wrappers argh or click or others.

some of those libraries may be usable for some of my programs. most of my commands have unusual and/or non-standard command syntax. i have seen nothing that am able to use on eve half of my commands. my next program will have a syntax that uses both - and + and can even mix both sets of option within the same argument. and these options have specific influence on how the file names are tested as it goes. and, of course, error messages include argument context for user.

what are your questions about my use of eval()? am i calling it with credentials different than who types in that option? no!