Parsing command-line arguments in C?

Question

I\'m trying to write a program that can compare two files line by line, word by word, or character by character in C. It has to be able to read in command line options

Answer 1

Okay that's the start of long story - made short 'bort parsing a command line in C ...

/**
* Helper function to parse the command line
* @param argc Argument Counter
* @param argv Argument Vector
* @param prog Program Instance Reference to fill with options
*/
bool parseCommandLine(int argc, char* argv[], DuplicateFileHardLinker* prog) {
  bool pathAdded = false;

  // iterate over all arguments...
  for ( int i = 1; iQuite mode");
            logInfo(L"  /v\t>Verbose mode");
            logInfo(L"  /d\t>Debug mode");
            return false;

            // Log options
          case 'q':
            setLogLevel(LOG_ERROR);
            break;

          case 'v':
            setLogLevel(LOG_VERBOSE);
            break;

          case 'd':
            setLogLevel(LOG_DEBUG);
            break;

          default:
            logError(L"'%s' is an illegal command line option!"
                      "  Use /? to see valid options!", option);
            return false;
          } // switch one-char-option
        } //while one-char-options
      }  //else one vs longer options
    } // if isArgAnOption

// 
// ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  So that's it! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
// What follows now is are some usefull extras...
//
    else {


      // the command line options seems to be a path...
      WCHAR tmpPath[MAX_PATH_LENGTH];
      mbstowcs(tmpPath, argv[i], sizeof(tmpPath));

      // check if the path is existing!
      //...

      prog->addPath(tmpPath); //Comment or remove to get a working example
      pathAdded = true;
    }
  }

  // check for parameters
  if ( !pathAdded ) {
    logError("You need to specify at least one folder to process!\n"
             "Use /? to see valid options!");
    return false;
  }

  return true;
}



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

  try {
    // parse the command line
    if ( !parseCommandLine(argc, argv, prog) ) {
      return 1; 
    }

// I know that sample is just to show how the nicely parse commandline Arguments
// So Please excuse more nice useful C-glatter that follows now...
  }
  catch ( LPCWSTR err ) {
    DWORD dwError = GetLastError();
    if ( wcslen(err) > 0 ) {
      if ( dwError != 0 ) {
        logError(dwError, err);
      }
      else {
        logError(err);
      }
    }
    return 2;
  }
}

#define LOG_ERROR               1
#define LOG_INFO                0
#define LOG_VERBOSE             -1
#define LOG_DEBUG               -2

/** Logging Level for the console output */
int logLevel = LOG_INFO;

void logError(LPCWSTR message, ...) {
  va_list argp;
  fwprintf(stderr, L"ERROR: ");
  va_start(argp, message);
  vfwprintf(stderr, message, argp);
  va_end(argp);
  fwprintf(stderr, L"\n");
}


void logInfo(LPCWSTR message, ...) {
  if ( logLevel <= LOG_INFO ) {
    va_list argp;
    va_start(argp, message);
    vwprintf(message, argp);
    va_end(argp);
    wprintf(L"\n");
  }
}

Note that this version will also support combining arguments: So instead of writing /h /s -> /hs will also work.

Sorry for being the n-th person posting here - however I wasn't really satisfied with all the stand-alone-versions I saw here. Well the lib ones are quit nice. So I would prefere libUCW option parser, Arg or Getopt over a home-made ones.

Note you may change:

*++argv[i] -> (++argv*)[0] longer less cryptic but still cryptic.

Okay let's break it down: 1. argv[i]-> access i-th element in the argv-char pointer field

2. ++*... -> will forward the argv-pointer by one char

3. ... [0]-> will follow the pointer read the char

4. ++(...) -> bracket are there so we'll increase the pointer and not the char value itself.

So nice that In C## the pointers 'died' - long live the pointers !!!