Command-line argument parsing
Different command-line argument parsing methods are used by different programming languages to parse command-line arguments.
Programming languages
C
C uses argv
to process command-line arguments.[1][2]
An example of C argument parsing would be:
#include <stdio.h>
int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
int count;
for (count = 0; count < argc; count++)
puts (argv[count]);
}
C also has functions called getopt and getopt_long.
C#
An example of C# argument parsing would be:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
foreach (var arg in args)
Console.WriteLine(arg);
}
}
Java
An example of Java argument parsing would be:
public class Echo {
public static void main (String[] args) {
for (String s: args) {
System.out.println(s);
}
}
}
Kotlin
Here are some possible ways to print arguments in Kotlin:[3]
fun main(args: Array<String>) = println(args.joinToString())
fun main(args: Array<String>) = println(args.contentToString())
fun main(args: Array<String>) {
for (arg in args)
println(arg)
}
Perl
Perl uses @ARGV
.
foreach $arg (@ARGV)GT
{
print $arg;
}
FT
or
foreach $argnum (0 .. $#ARGV)ST
{
print $ARGV[$argnum];
}
AWK
AWK uses ARGV
also.
BEGIN {
for ( i = 0; i < ARGC; i++ )
{
print ARGV[i]
}
}
PHP
PHP uses argc
as a count of arguments and argv
as an array containing the values of the arguments.[4][5] To create an array from command-line arguments in the -foo:bar
format, the following might be used:
$args = parseArgs($argv);
echo getArg($args, "foo");
function parseArgs(array $args)
{
foreach ($args as $arg) {
$tmp = explode(":", $arg, 2);
if ($arg[0] === "-") {
$args[substr($tmp[0], 1)] = $tmp[1];
}
}
return $args;
}
function getArg(array $args, string $arg)
{
if (isset($args[$arg])) {
return $args[$arg];
}
return false;
}
PHP can also use getopt()
.[6]
Python
Python uses sys.argv
, e.g.:
import sys
for arg in sys.argv:
print arg
Python also has a module called argparse
in the standard library for parsing command-line arguments.[7]
Racket
Racket uses a current-command-line-arguments
parameter, and provides a racket/cmdline
[8] library for parsing these arguments. Example:
#lang racket
(require racket/cmdline)
(define smile? (make-parameter #t))
(define nose? (make-parameter #false))
(define eyes (make-parameter ":"))
(command-line #:program "emoticon"
#:once-any ; the following two are mutually exclusive
[("-s" "--smile") "smile mode" (smile? #true)]
[("-f" "--frown") "frown mode" (smile? #false)]
#:once-each
[("-n" "--nose") "add a nose" (nose? #true)]
[("-e" "--eyes") char "use <char> for the eyes" (eyes char)])
(printf "~a~a~a\n"
(eyes)
(if (nose?) "-" "")
(if (smile?) ")" "("))
The library parses long and short flags, handles arguments, allows combining short flags, and handles -h
and --help
automatically:
$ racket /tmp/c -nfe 8
8-(
Rexx
Rexx uses arg
, e.g.:
do i=1 to words(arg(1))
say word(arg(1), i)
end
Rust
The args are in env::args()
.[9]
use std::env;
fn main() {
let args: Vec<String> = env::args().collect();
let query = &args[1];
let file_path = &args[2];
println!("Searching for {}", query);
println!("In file {}", file_path);
}
JavaScript
Node.js
JavaScript programs written for Node.js use the process.argv
global variable.[10]
// argv.js
console.log(process.argv);
$ node argv.js one two three four five
[ 'node',
'/home/avian/argvdemo/argv.js',
'one',
'two',
'three',
'four',
'five' ]
Node.js programs are invoked by running the interpreter node interpreter with a given file, so the first two arguments will be node
and the name of the JavaScript source file. It is often useful to extract the rest of the arguments by slicing a sub-array from process.argv
.[11]
// process-args.js
console.log(process.argv.slice(2));
$ node process-args.js one two=three four
[
'one',
'two=three',
'four' ]
Bun
JavaScript written for Bun use Bun.argv
and the util.parseArgs
function.[12]
console.log(Bun.argv);
Deno
JavaScript written for Deno use Deno.args
[13] and the parseArgs
function.[14]
console.log(Deno.args);
References
- ^ "The C Book — Arguments to main". Publications.gbdirect.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-05-31.
- ^ An example of parsing C arguments and options
- ^ "Kotlin: Basic syntax". Retrieved 2022-05-13.
- ^ "PHP Manual". PHP. Retrieved 2010-05-31.
- ^ wikibooks:PHP Programming/CLI
- ^ "PHP: Getopt - Manual".
- ^ "argparse — Parser for command-line options, arguments and sub-commands". Python v3.10.0 documentation. Archived from the original on 2012-11-01. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
- ^ The Racket reference manual, Command-Line Parsing
- ^ "Accepting Command Line Arguments - The Rust Programming Language". doc.rust-lang.org. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
- ^ "process.argv". Node.js v10.16.3 Documentation. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
- ^ "How to parse command line arguments". Node.js Foundation Documentation. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
- ^ "Parse command-line arguments | Bun Examples". Bun.
- ^ "Deno.args". docs.deno.com.
- ^ "parseArgs from parse-args - @std/cli - JSR". jsr.io.