C program with command line options - c

Question

I wonder how to write a C program with options that can be invoked by a terminal.
Example : Person.c
#include <stdio.h>
void main ()
{
char option;
if(option == 'f') printf("First Name");
else if(option == 'l') printf("Last Name");
else printf("Full Name");
}
Compile it with
cc Person.c -o Person
Objective :
I want to reach my program options through terminal.
Example :
./Person -f
Output : First Name

Answer 1

void main () is wrong, if you copied this from a book, throw the book away
It should be int main(int argc, char **argv), argc will then be set to the number of arguments and argv[1] .... argv[argc-1] are the argument strings (argv[0] is the name of the program)

Answer 2

Here's my $0.02:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
if (argc != 2) {
printf ("USAGE: ./Person [-f|-l]\n");
return 1;
}
if (strcmp (argv[1], "-f") == 0) {
printf("First Name");
}
else if (strcmp (argv[1], "-l") == 0)
printf("Last Name");
}
else {
printf ("Unknown argument\n");
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
Important points:
1) In C, you can't just compare strings (like "aaa" == "bbb"). You need special library functions, like "strcmp()" ("compare strings").
2) In order to use library functions, you need to #include headers (like "stdio.h", for "printf()", or "string.h", for "strcmp()"). You can find out which headers you need by using "man" ... or simply Googling for the relevant call ("google strcmp" should give you the same results as "man strcmp")
3) It's a good general convention to use the programs return values to indicate "success" or "failure". "0", by convention, usually means "success".
4) Finally, for your purposes, it's essential to use "argc" and "argv" to access your command line arguments.
5) The "if (argc != 2)" at the top insures that you've entered at least one command line argument (argument "0" is the name of the program itself). This is important because trying to read an argument you don't have ("trying to read off the end of the array") could cause a crash ;)
'Hope that helps!

Answer 3

Please change your main prototype as
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
The options as asked by you in your question can be passed using the input arguments to the main function as given above.
The argc parameter tells you how many inputs has been passed through terminal and the argv will provide you each input as an array of char *. Please note that the first input (argv[0]) will be by default the filename of the executable with full path and the rest of inputs will follow it.
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/c/lesson14.html - This tutorial will also be of some help.

Answer 4

The correct form for a main function is:
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
}
Then argv holds your command line arguments:
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
for(int i = 0; i < argc; ++i) {
printf("arg %d is %s", i, argv[i]);
}
return 0; // indicates that the program completed successfully
}

Answer 5

Call main with these inputs:
int main ( int argc, char **argv)
argc is the number of args, and argv is an array of the command line arguments. Note that the first argument of argv is the program name.

Answer 6

you have to tell C that your giving it options
int main(int argc, char **argv)
argc is the number of arguments and argv is the argument you call
so then ./Person -f
you need to tell it
if (strncmp(argv[i],"-f",1) == 0) {

Answer 7

You should also look at some of the parsing libraries out there. Many people have written great libraries for parsing command line options so that you don't have to repeat all of the work of validating options. Most are pretty easy to use, as well.