Wrap a python module's CLI entrypoint with argfiles support

run_with_args.py

#! /usr/bin/env python3
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 mara004 <geisserml@gmail.com>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause

import sys
import shlex
from pathlib import Path
from importlib import import_module
from importlib.metadata import entry_points

def _read_argfiles(argv, parents):
    #print(argv, parents)
    for arg in argv:
        if arg.startswith("@"):
            argfile_path = Path(arg[1:]).expanduser().resolve()
            if argfile_path in parents:
                raise RuntimeError("self-includes are prohibited (would be infinite recursion)")
            argfile_content = argfile_path.read_text().strip()
            for l in argfile_content.split("\n"):
                parents.append(argfile_path)
                try:
                    yield from _read_argfiles(shlex.split(l), parents)
                finally:
                    parents.pop()  #popped = ...
                    #assert popped is argfile_path
        else:
            yield arg

def main():
    
    if sys.argv[1] in ("-h", "--help"):
        print(f"Usage: {sys.argv[0]} MODNAME ARGFILE_ARGS", file=sys.stderr)
        return
    
    modname = sys.argv[1]
    ep, = entry_points(group="console_scripts", name=modname)
    modpath, funcname = ep.value.rsplit(":", maxsplit=1)
    
    # list slicing copies
    parents = []
    argv_iter = _read_argfiles(sys.argv[2:], parents)
    sys.argv.clear()
    sys.argv.append(modname)
    sys.argv.extend(argv_iter)
    #assert not parents  # len 0
    
    module = import_module(modpath)
    func = getattr(module, funcname)
    func()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

See also ctypesgen/ctypesgen#223 (comment) (thread) for background.

todo: a ValueError would perhaps fit better than a RuntimeError for the recursive includes

Another idea: we could change parents to a list (created in main()) and use append/pop.
This may avoid the tuple re-creations parents=(*parents, argfile_path).

Done, I think.