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I have some Python 2.7 code written that uses the argparse module. Now I need to run it on a Python 2.6 machine and it won't work since argparse was added in 2.7.

Is there anyway I can get argparse in 2.6? I would like to avoid rewriting the code, since I will be transferring this kind of code between the machines often. Upgrading python is not an option.

I should have clarified that the ideal solution would be something that does not require module installation.

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  • You can simply install the argparse package on the machine. Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 2:12
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    pypi.python.org/pypi/argparse Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 2:12
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    @nneonneo: Second result on Google if you just search "argparse". Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 2:16
  • @nneonneo I obviously saw that, but it wasn't clear to me if it is exactly the same as the 2.7 argparse. Also I wanted to see if there is some solution that doesn't require installation of a module. Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 2:17
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    from __future__ import ... is only for language features, not whole modules. You can actually check what's available in __future__ by doing import __future__; dir(__future__). (I am not responsible for any paradoxes derived from seeing the future) Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 2:22

5 Answers 5

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On Centos, Scientific, or Redhat, you can fix this by running the command:for

yum install python-argparse
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According to pkgs.org, the package python-argparse is only available on CentOS 6 repository. On CentOS 5, it is available on EPEL repository, which must be enabled. For more information, check the CentOS Wiki topic on Repositories.
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You can install it via pip or easy_install: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argparse

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FIY, here's the command which I used. easy_install pip && pip install argparse yum doesn't have the package for this version of Python.
Why doesn't this work for me? It still complains that ImportError: No module named argparse after successfully running pip install argparse.
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you can also get the argparse.py file (e.g. from https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argparse) and put it in the same folder as your main python file.

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If you are on Debian-like systems, you may simply write this:

apt-get install python-argparse
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When I had this need I just installed argparse using pip: pip install argparse. This worked fine for the python-2.6.6-66.el6_8.x86_64 that was installed on my vanilla CentOS 6.8 system. I later found out that this did not work on other systems running python-2.6.6-52.el6.x86_64. As a result I ended up copying argparse related files from one system to the other.

i.e. all files and directories beginning with argparse in /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages

Only after doing all this did I discover that I could have simply installed the python argparse rpm python-argparse that comes with both distributions.

i.e. yum install python-argparse

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