What is “argv”, and what does it do?

Question

argv

What on Earth is it!?

Edit: If you can, will you please write a line or two and explain how it works?

Answer 1

Script printArgv.py:

import sys
print sys.argv.__class__
spam = sys.argv[1:]
print spam

Run it with: python printArgv.py 1 2 3 4 5

You would find the output:

<type 'list'>
['1', '2', '3', '4', '5']

Which means the sys.argv is a list of parameters you input following the script name.