🚀 go-pugleaf

--> I'm not sure what you really need .. But anyway, 
C uses argc and argv to parse the command line .. 
This means that you need to include them in your code 
main (int argc, char *argv[])
If your program's name is "utility" and you type just utility, this
means that you have argc=1 and argv[0]= utility
--------------------------------------------------------
One simple way to do something like that ..
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
   int i ;
   struct param
   {
      char option[20] ;
      char value[20] ;
   } ;

   struct param my_param ;

   if (argc > 1)
   {
      for (i = 1 ; i < argc ; i=i+2)
      {
         strcpy(my_param.option,argv[i]) ;
         strcpy(my_param.value,argv[i+1]) ;
         /* write whatever you want here to make use of the parameters
            user send on the command line 
            If the user writes  > utility -option1 value
            then you have my_param.option = -option1
            and my_param.value = value
 
            you can also make an array of this structure if you expect
            many arguments to be sent ! 
         */
      }
   }
}

Hope, this help you .. ! :)

T.N.
----------------------------------------------------

gnuist007@hotmail.com (gnuist) wrote in message news:<9e8ebeb2.0204131900.67ea8c47@posting.google.com>...
> Suppose that I am writing a utility
> 
> utility [-mode1 <24|124>] [-mode2 [67]]
> 
> so if I am correct in using the BNF notation, [] denotes optional arguments
> and <> denotes mandatory arguments. The command egrep in linux has alternate
> patterns for searching specified by the vertical stroke, "|" as we have used
> for mode number one for this utility. I have used numbers as the arguments
> to the switches to show this possibility.
> 
> I have to parse this command line via *argv[] and argc.
> Please show how to approach it. For example, what argc will different
> arguments give? 
> 
> utility -mode1 "24|214"
> utility -mode1  24|214
> utility -mode2  24
> utility -mode2 "24" -mode2 67
> 
> and how will we deal with conflicting arguments? Is there are uniform and
> professional method of approaching this problem? I am not a CS and hardly
> know the finite state machines but if you are kind enough to put some examples
> to plant the ideas, would be very grateful and finish this work. I do have
> the dragon book.
> 
> I am posting this to C/C++ because they are the languages of implementation
> and unix because they also deal with it and GNU compatible utilities require
> robust and unambiguous command line interface as a basic requirement to 
> consider any to be considered gnuable.
> 
> Thanks a lot for any help and hope to give you some good utilities in return!!!