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Switches

Switches

Question:
I’m attempting to write a command line program which has switch functionality (such as the DOS switches). I’m not sure how to code the program to accept the switches following the program call. It would run something like this:

sample.exe /n /d: /t blah blah:blah:blah

Answer:
Your program may need to handle other arguments as well as “switches.” For example, file names. But here’s some code I like to use to process any number of switches.

void main(int argc,char *argv[]){   int i;   /* read command line parameters */   for(i = 1;i < argc;i++) {      switch(argv[i][0]) {         case '/':         case '-':            switch(tolower(argv[i][1])) {               case 'a': // got /a or -a                  break;               case 'b': // got /b or -b                  break;               case 'c': // etc.                  break;               default: // ???-show help                  break;            }            break;         default:            // got an argument with no            // - or / maybe a filename            break;      }   }}
This should get you started. It allows switches to be set off with either “/” or “-“, to be upper or lower case, and gives a place to handle nonswitch arguments as well.

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