Building a Menu

A menu is constructed as a list of menu_node dicts. Each menu node is equivalent to a command (or subcommand).

menu_node structure

Each menu_node is a dict that takes the following keys:

Key	Value
command	str: The argument command.
function	function: The function to execute.
children	list or dict: Subcommand or auto-completion children. See below.
parser	InputParer: For parsing command string and type casting arguments.
validate_args	bool: Validate arguments before running function.

Each menu_node requires the command key and either function or children.

Note

The parser and validate_args values are inherited from a menu_node’s parent unless explicitly defined.

menu_node children

A menu_node has a few options for children.

1. A list of menu_nodes. For adding subcommands. function must be None with this option.

{
    'command': 'show',
    'children': [
        {
            'command': 'version',
            'function': show_version,
        },
        {
            'command': 'clock',
            'function': show_clock
        }
    ]
}

2. A list of strings. This is strictly for auto-completion. function must be declared with this option.

{
    'command': 'show',
    'function': show
    'children': ['comments', 'posts']
}

3. A NestedDict wrapped dictionary of the same format used with prompt_toolkit.completion.NestedCompleter. This is strictly for auto-completion. function must be declared with this option.

from prompt_smart_menu import NestedDict

{
    'command': 'show',
    'function': show
    'children': NestedDict(
        {
            'version': None,
            'interfaces': None,
            'clock': None,
            'ip': {'interface': {'brief'}}
        }
    )
}

PromptSmartMenu

Once a menu’s configuration has been declared. Simply initialize a PromptSmartMenu with it. The parser and validate_args options can also be declared here; in most situations this makes the most sense.

from prompt_smart_menu import PromptSmartMenu
from prompt_smart_menu.input_parser import InputParser, KwargCast, NumberCast

menu_config = [
    {
        'command': 'exit',
        'function': exit,
    },
    {
        'command': 'show',
        'children': [
            {
                'command': 'version',
                'function': show_version,
            },
            {
                'command': 'clock',
                'function': show_clock
            }
        ]
    }
]

psm = PromptSmartMenu(
        menu_config,
        parser=InputParser(KwargCast, NumberCast),
        validate_args=True)