Key value pair as a param in a console app

Question

Is there an easy way to allow a collection of Key/Value pairs (both strings) as command line parameters to a console app?

Solution 1

If you mean having a commandline looking like this: c:> YourProgram.exe /switch1:value1 /switch2:value2 ...

This can easily be parsed on startup with something looking like this:

private static void Main(string[] args)
{
   Regex cmdRegEx = new Regex(@"/(?<name>.+?):(?<val>.+)");

   Dictionary<string, string> cmdArgs = new Dictionary<string, string>();
   foreach (string s in args)
   {
      Match m = cmdRegEx.Match(s);
      if (m.Success)
      {
         cmdArgs.Add(m.Groups[1].Value, m.Groups[2].Value);
      }
   }
}

You can then do lookups in cmdArgs dictionary. Not sure if that's what you want though.

Solution 2

There is no good way to precisely pass key/value pairs from command-line. The only thing that's available is an array of string which you can loop through and extract as key/value pairs.

using System;

public class Class1
{
   public static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      Dictionary<string, string> values = new Dictionary<string, string>();

      // hopefully you have even number args count.
      for(int i=0; i < args.Length; i+=2){
      {
           values.Add(args[i], args[i+1]);
      }

   }
}

and then call

Class1.exe key1 value1 key2 value2

Solution 3

The entry point of an application is a main method that can take a string[] of the arguments (these are the command line arguments).

This can't be changed. See MSDN.

To make working with this easier, there are many command line helper libraries that can be used.

One such library is .NET CLI, from the MONO guys, and many others.