Pass array as a command line argument to Asp.Net Core

Question

Need to pass array as a command line argument to Asp.Net Core hosted service.

Added providers

config
  .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json")
  .AddCommandLine(args);

somewhere in application I have

var actions = _configuration.GetSection("actions").Get<List<string>>();
foreach (var action in actions)
{
   Console.WriteLine(action);
}

Try to run app like

dotnet MyService.dll --actions Action1,Action2
dotnet MyService.dll --actions [Action1,Action2]
dotnet MyService.dll --actions ["Action1","Action2"]

but no results, the actions is null

When I add "actions": ["Action1","Action2"] to appsettings.json then binding works well.

How to pass array as a command line argument?

I can get it in this way _configuration.GetValue<string>("actions").Split(",");, but how to bind it to list?

Answer 1

ASP.NET Core configuration is a set of key-value pairs. The appsettings.json property you've shown gets converted into the following:

• actions:0 = Action1
• actions:1 = Action2

Provide this same set of key-value pairs as multiple command-line arguments to get the desired result:

dotnet MyService.dll --actions:0 Action1 --actions:1 Action2