C Quick Syntax Reference

CHAPTER 20

Command Line Arguments

When a C program is executed it can accept arguments that are passed to it from the command line. These command line arguments are useful for controlling the behavior of the program from outside the code. The arguments are passed to the main function, which is then set to accept two parameters as shown here.

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {}

The integer argc is the number of arguments passed, and argv is a pointer array to the supplied command line arguments. The first argument argv[0] is the name of the program, so the argument count in argc begins with 1 when no arguments are passed. If the program name is ...