+# a code fragment that could be helpful for argparse which unfortunately is
+# available with 2.7 only, so this feels like too strong a requirement for the client side
+#class ExtraArgAction (argparse.Action):
+# def __call__ (self, parser, namespace, values, option_string=None):
+# would need a try/except of course
+# (k,v)=values.split('=')
+# d=getattr(namespace,self.dest)
+# d[k]=v
+#####
+#parser.add_argument ("-X","--extra",dest='extras', default={}, action=ExtraArgAction,
+# help="set extra flags, testbed dependent, e.g. --extra enabled=true")
+
+def optparse_dictvalue_callback (option, option_string, value, parser):
+ try:
+ (k,v)=value.split('=',1)
+ d=getattr(parser.values, option.dest)
+ d[k]=v
+ except:
+ parser.print_help()
+ sys.exit(1)
+