Parsing Command Line Arguments in C++? [closed]

Question

The suggestions for boost::program_options and GNU getopt are good ones.

However, for simple command line options I tend to use std::find

For example, to read the name of a file after a -f command line argument. You can also just detect if a single-word option has been passed in like -h for help.

#include <algorithm>

char* getCmdOption(char ** begin, char ** end, const std::string & option)
{
    char ** itr = std::find(begin, end, option);
    if (itr != end && ++itr != end)
    {
        return *itr;
    }
    return 0;
}

bool cmdOptionExists(char** begin, char** end, const std::string& option)
{
    return std::find(begin, end, option) != end;
}

int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
    if(cmdOptionExists(argv, argv+argc, "-h"))
    {
        // Do stuff
    }

    char * filename = getCmdOption(argv, argv + argc, "-f");

    if (filename)
    {
        // Do interesting things
        // ...
    }

    return 0;
}

On thing to look out for with this approach you must use std::strings as the value for std::find otherwise the equality check is performed on the pointer values.

---

I hope it is okay to edit this response instead adding a new one, as this is based on the original answer. I re-wrote the functions slightly and encapsulated them in a class, so here is the code. I thought it might be practical to use it that way as well:

class InputParser{
    public:
        InputParser (int &argc, char **argv){
            for (int i=1; i < argc; ++i)
                this->tokens.push_back(std::string(argv[i]));
        }
        /// @author iain
        const std::string& getCmdOption(const std::string &option) const{
            std::vector<std::string>::const_iterator itr;
            itr =  std::find(this->tokens.begin(), this->tokens.end(), option);
            if (itr != this->tokens.end() && ++itr != this->tokens.end()){
                return *itr;
            }
            static const std::string empty_string("");
            return empty_string;
        }
        /// @author iain
        bool cmdOptionExists(const std::string &option) const{
            return std::find(this->tokens.begin(), this->tokens.end(), option)
                   != this->tokens.end();
        }
    private:
        std::vector <std::string> tokens;
};

int main(int argc, char **argv){
    InputParser input(argc, argv);
    if(input.cmdOptionExists("-h")){
        // Do stuff
    }
    const std::string &filename = input.getCmdOption("-f");
    if (!filename.empty()){
        // Do interesting things ...
    }
    return 0;
}

Boost.Program_options should do the trick

I can suggest Templatized C++ Command Line Parser Library (some forks on GitHub are available), the API is very straightforward and (cited from the site):

the library is implemented entirely in header files making it easy to use and distribute with other software. It is licensed under the MIT License for worry free distribution.

This is an example from the manual, colored here for simplicity:

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
#include <tclap/CmdLine.h>

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{

    // Wrap everything in a try block.  Do this every time,
    // because exceptions will be thrown for problems.
    try {

    // Define the command line object, and insert a message
    // that describes the program. The "Command description message"
    // is printed last in the help text. The second argument is the
    // delimiter (usually space) and the last one is the version number.
    // The CmdLine object parses the argv array based on the Arg objects
    // that it contains.
    TCLAP::CmdLine cmd("Command description message", ' ', "0.9");

    // Define a value argument and add it to the command line.
    // A value arg defines a flag and a type of value that it expects,
    // such as "-n Bishop".
    TCLAP::ValueArg<std::string> nameArg("n","name","Name to print",true,"homer","string");

    // Add the argument nameArg to the CmdLine object. The CmdLine object
    // uses this Arg to parse the command line.
    cmd.add( nameArg );

    // Define a switch and add it to the command line.
    // A switch arg is a boolean argument and only defines a flag that
    // indicates true or false.  In this example the SwitchArg adds itself
    // to the CmdLine object as part of the constructor.  This eliminates
    // the need to call the cmd.add() method.  All args have support in
    // their constructors to add themselves directly to the CmdLine object.
    // It doesn't matter which idiom you choose, they accomplish the same thing.
    TCLAP::SwitchArg reverseSwitch("r","reverse","Print name backwards", cmd, false);

    // Parse the argv array.
    cmd.parse( argc, argv );

    // Get the value parsed by each arg.
    std::string name = nameArg.getValue();
    bool reverseName = reverseSwitch.getValue();

    // Do what you intend.
    if ( reverseName )
    {
            std::reverse(name.begin(),name.end());
            std::cout << "My name (spelled backwards) is: " << name << std::endl;
    }
    else
            std::cout << "My name is: " << name << std::endl;


    } catch (TCLAP::ArgException &e)  // catch any exceptions
    { std::cerr << "error: " << e.error() << " for arg " << e.argId() << std::endl; }
}

Boost.Program_options