How To Format Command Line Argument Key Value Pairs

Question

A typical format for command line arguments is:

myApp --myArg=myValue

What if I want to pass in a set of key value pairs through the command line? Something like:

myApp --myList={arg1=val1;arg2=val2;arg3=val3...}

Since there seems to be no standard for this sort of thing, can anyone provide examples from well-used utilities that have this sort of command line argument input? I poked around some man pages but didn't find any.

Edit: I'm wondering both how the input should be formatted and what the help text might look like.

Answer 1

I think it largely depends on how you parse the arguments in your program.

Here are some examples that the programs accept multiple key-value pair values.

man php:

   --define foo[=bar]
   -d foo[=bar]   Define INI entry foo with value bar

man git:

   -c <name>=<value>
       Pass a configuration parameter to the command. The value given will
       override values from configuration files. The <name> is expected in
       the same format as listed by git config (subkeys separated by
       dots).

For both, one can pass multiple -d or -c arguments to the programs which gives you the ability to supply a list of key-value pairs to the programs.

IMO, it's not a big problem having your own style of accepting lists of key-value pairs for your program as long as it works and is well-documented. :)

P.S.: I think this question would be more appropriate be placed on Programmers Stack Exchange rather than on SO. See here and here.