Question

I need to add the ability to a program to accept multiple named parameters when opening the program via the command line. i.e.

program.exe /param1=value /param2=value

and then be able to utilize these parameters as variables in the program. I have found a couple of ways to accomplish pieces of this, but can’t seem to figure out how to put it all together.

I have been able to pass one named parameter and recover it using the code below, and while I could duplicate it for every possible named parameter, I know that can’t be the preffered way to do this.

    Dim inputArgument As String = "/input="
    Dim inputName As String = ""

    For Each s As String In My.Application.CommandLineArgs
        If s.ToLower.StartsWith(inputArgument) Then
            inputName = s.Remove(0, inputArgument.Length)
        End If
    Next

Alternatively, I can get multiple unnamed parameters from the command line using

My.Application.CommandLineArgs

But this requires that the parameters all be passed in the same order/format each time. I need to be able to pass a random subset of parameters each time.

Ultimately, what I would like to be able to do, is separate each argument and value, and load it into a multidimentional array for later use. I know that I could find a way to do this by separating the string at the “=” and stripping the “/”, but as I am somewhat new to this, I wanted to see if there was a “preffered” way for dealing with multiple named parameters?

Answer 1

My preference for handling this would be to use an existing library, such as the Command Line Parser Library. (However, by default, it uses a different input format, based around --input=Value instead of /input=value.)

This gives you the advantage of not having to write the code yourself, getting a lot of flexibility and robustness, and simplifying your code.