Quick mockup for checking for doubled command line options

double_optparse.py

from optparse import Option, OptionParser

# Adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23032514/argparse-disable-same-argument-occurences and optparse docs

class MyOption(Option):
    
    ACTIONS = Option.ACTIONS + ("unique_store",)
    STORE_ACTIONS = Option.STORE_ACTIONS + ("unique_store",)
    TYPED_ACTIONS = Option.TYPED_ACTIONS + ("unique_store",)
    ALWAYS_TYPED_ACTIONS = Option.ALWAYS_TYPED_ACTIONS + ("unique_store",)

    def take_action(self, action, dest, opt, value, values, parser):
        if action == 'unique_store':
            if values.ensure_value(dest, None) is not None:
                parser.error(opt + " appears more than once.  Please try again with only one " + opt + " option given")
            else:
                setattr(values, dest, value)
        else:
            Option.take_action(
                    self, action, dest, opt, value, values, parser)


def main():
    parser = OptionParser(option_class=MyOption)
    parser.add_option("-t", "--test", dest="test", action="store")
    parser.add_option("-u", "--unique", dest="unique_var", action="unique_store")
    (opts, args) = parser.parse_args()

    print opts.test
    print opts.unique_var

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()