How do I pass command line arguments to a Node.js program?

Question

I have a web server written in Node.js and I would like to launch with a specific folder. I\'m not sure how to access arguments in JavaScript. I\'m running node like this:

Answer 1

The up-to-date right answer for this it to use the minimist library. We used to use node-optimist but it has since been deprecated.

Here is an example of how to use it taken straight from the minimist documentation:

var argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2));
console.dir(argv);

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$ node example/parse.js -a beep -b boop
{ _: [], a: 'beep', b: 'boop' }

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$ node example/parse.js -x 3 -y 4 -n5 -abc --beep=boop foo bar baz
{ _: [ 'foo', 'bar', 'baz' ],
  x: 3,
  y: 4,
  n: 5,
  a: true,
  b: true,
  c: true,
  beep: 'boop' }