Question

I see so many programs take command-line arguments with flags, for example gcc hello.c -o hello. Of course, I can implement that in my application:

Dim args() As String = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()
Dim oi As Integer = Array.IndexOf("-o", args)
If oi > -1 AndAlso oi < args.Length Then
    CompileTo(args(oi + 1)) 'Or whatever
Else
    CompileTo("out.exe") 'Or whatever
End If

But it’s ugly and annoying to use, prone to errors, and inefficient. What’s the better way that I keep overlooking?

Answer 1

In many (most?) Linux programs these options are handled by getopt. It’s a pretty versatile system, so it might be a good point to start and get some inspiration.