Question

I’ve used the setargv.obj linking for expanding wildcard arguments in the past for a number of C and C++ applications, but I can’t find any similar mention for .NET applications.

Is there a standard way to have your application’s command line parameters automatically wildcard expanded? (i.e., expand *.doc from one entry in the args parameter to all that match that wildcard).

P.S.: I’ve hacked something together with Directory.GetFiles() for my current little project, but it does not cover wildcards with paths (yet), and it would be nice to do it without custom code.

Here is my rough hack, for illustration. It needs to split the parameters for the path and name for the GetFiles(), but this is a general idea. Linking setargv.obj into a C or C++ application would basically do all the wildcard expansion, leaving the user to only iterate over the argv array.

public static void Main(string[] args) {     foreach (string argString in args)     {         // Split into path and wildcard         int lastBackslashPos = argString.LastIndexOf('\\') + 1;         path = argString.Substring(0, lastBackslashPos);          filenameOnly = argString.Substring(lastBackslashPos, argString.Length - lastBackslashPos);          string[] fileList = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(path, filenameOnly);          foreach (string fileName in fileList)         {             // Do things for each file         }     } } 

Answer 1

Your code looks like exactly how you’re supposed to do it.