C Programming – Command Line Arguments
Command line arguments are a way to pass data to a program when it is executed. In C programming, command line arguments are passed to the main function as an array of strings, where each string represents a separate argument. The number of arguments passed to the program is stored in the argc variable, and the actual arguments are stored in the argv array.
The following code demonstrates how to use command line arguments in a C program:
#include
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
printf("Number of arguments: %d\n", argc);
for (int i = 0; i < argc; i++) {
printf("Argument %d: %s\n", i, argv[i]);
}
return 0;
}
The main function in this example takes in two arguments, int argc, and char *argv[]. The argc variable holds the number of arguments passed to the program, and the argv array holds the actual arguments passed to the program.
The printf statement prints the number of arguments passed to the program, represented by the argc variable. The for loop iterates over the argv array and prints each argument along with its index in the array.
The first argument in the argv array is the program’s name, so the first argument passed to the program will be stored at index 1 of the array.
It’s important to note that the number of arguments passed to the program may sometimes match the number of arguments the program expects to receive. It’s a good practice to check the value of argc and handle cases where the program receives too few or too many arguments.
In conclusion, command line arguments in C programming provide a way to pass data to a program when executed. The argc variable holds the number of arguments passed to the program and the argv array holds the actual arguments. Command line arguments can provide input to a program, configure its behavior, or specify the files or resources it should operate on. It’s important to handle cases where the program receives too few or too many arguments and check the value of argc before accessing the argv array.
