Undo deprecation of optparse

[andersk]

BPO	37103
Nosy	@ericvsmith, @andersk, @tirkarthi

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2019-05-30.19:50:25.237>
labels = ['3.8', 'library', 'docs']
title = 'Undo deprecation of optparse'
updated_at = <Date 2019-05-31.04:55:30.484>
user = 'https://github.com/andersk'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-05-31.04:55:30.484>
actor = 'xtreak'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Documentation', 'Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2019-05-30.19:50:25.237>
creator = 'andersk'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 37103
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['343997', '344023']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['eric.smith', 'andersk', 'docs@python', 'xtreak']
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priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue37103'
versions = ['Python 3.8']

[andersk]

The optparse library is currently marked in the documentation as deprecated in favor of argparse. However, argparse uses a nonstandard reinterpretation of Unix command line grammars that makes certain arguments impossible to express, and causes scripts to break when ported from optparse to argparse. See the bug report I filed nine years ago:

https://bugs.python.org/issue9334
argparse does not accept options taking arguments beginning with dash (regression from optparse)

The conclusion of the core developers (e.g. msg309691) seems to have been that although it’s a valid bug, it can’t or won’t be fixed with the current argparse architecture.

I was asked by another core developer to file a bug report for the de-deprecation of optparse (https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-594-removing-dead-batteries-from-the-standard-library/1704/20), so here it is.

[tirkarthi]

See also bpo-25521

[savannahostrowski]

This was done via #126227