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Issue with using AttackArgs class outside of the command line (in my Python script) #728
Description
Hello,
I am experiencing an issue when trying to use the AttackArgs class from the TextAttack library outside of the command line. I'm attempting to use the class programmatically in my Python script, but the arguments I provide are not correctly assigned.
Here's a code snippet demonstrating my problem:
from textattack.attack_args import AttackArgs
attack_args = AttackArgs(
num_examples=100,
num_successful_examples=2,
log_to_csv="text_attack_results.csv"
)
print(attack_args)
When I run the code, the num_examples values are not updated and remain at their default values. However, it seems that other arguments like num_successful_examples or log_to_csv are being correctly assigned.
I suspect this might be related to the class implementation, specifically the _add_parser_args method, which seems to be designed for command-line usage. Is there a way to use the AttackArgs class programmatically in a Python script without relying on the command line interface? Any guidance or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you for your assistance.
System Information:
- OS: MacOS Ventura 13.1
- Textattack version: 0.3.8
Activity
sabrinahartung commentedon Apr 14, 2023
I discovered that the issue with
num_examplesbeing set toNoneis due to the following code snippet in theAttackArgsclass:def post_init(self):
if self.num_successful_examples:
self.num_examples = None
This is causing
num_examplesto be set toNonewhen a value is assigned tonum_successful_examples.I would like to understand if this behavior is intentional and, if so, the rationale behind it. Is it to prevent users from specifying both
num_examplesandnum_successful_examplessimultaneously? If this is a design choice, could you please provide guidance on how to use these options properly in cases where we want to limit the total number of examples while also specifying the number of successful adversarial examples desired? If this is a bug, can you suggest a workaround or provide an update to fix the issue?qiyanjun commentedon Aug 13, 2026
@sabrinahartung you diagnosed this exactly right — it's intentional (per the docstring: "If set, this argument overrides `num_examples`"), but silently dropping the value you passed with no explanation is a bad experience. Opened #831, which adds a warning when both are set together, so this is at least discoverable without reading the source. Will close automatically once that merges.
Fix two more review findings from PR QData#831
Fix six more bugs from the unresolved-bugs triage list