import argparse class CsvListAction(argparse.Action): """  argparse Action to convert "a,b,c" into ["a", "b", "c"]  """ def __call__(self, parser, namespace, values, option_string=None): # Conversion to dict removes duplicates while preserving order items = list(dict.fromkeys(values.split(",")).keys()) setattr(namespace, self.dest, items) parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Testing") parser.add_argument("directory", type=str, help="path to find files") parser.add_argument( "--output", type=str, help="name of output file to produce", ) name_args_group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group() name_args_group.add_argument( "--name-exclude", action=CsvListAction, help="Comma-separated set of name ID(s) to exclude", ) name_args_group.add_argument( "--name-include", action=CsvListAction, help="Comma-separated set of name ID(s) to include", ) parser.add_argument( "--path-exclude", action=CsvListAction, default=[], help="Comma-separated set of UNIX glob patterns to exclude", ) parser.add_argument( "--path-include", action=CsvListAction, default=[], help="Comma-separated set of UNIX glob patterns to include", ) parser.parse_args()