How do I use command line arguments in my C# console app?

Question

I am writing a url shortener app and I would like to also create a console app with C# to push the URLs to a WCF service which I have also created.

WCF app will shorten the url on this URI;

http://example.com/shorten/http://exaple.com

so what I want is just that.

My console exe file will be sitting inside c:\dev folder and on Windows command line, I would like to do this;

c:\dev>myapp -throw http://example.com

with this method I would like to talk to that service. there is no problem on talking part. But the problem is how can I supply this -throw thing on the command line and get a response and put that response on the command line and supply a method to copy that to the clipboard. Am I asking too much here? :S I don't know.

Could you direct me somewhere that I can find information on that or could u please give me an example code of this?

Thanks.

EDIT : I have tried the following code;

    class Program {

    static void Main(string[] args) {

        if (args[0] == "-throw") {

            System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(args[1]);
            Console.WriteLine(args[1] + " has been added to clipboard !");
            Console.ReadLine();

        }

    }
}

and I received the following error;

C:\Apps\ArgsTry\ArgsTry\bin\Debug>ArgsTry -throw man

Unhandled Exception: System.Threading.ThreadStateException: Current thread must be set to single thread apartment (STA) mode before OLE calls can be made. Ensur e that your Main function has STAThreadAttribute marked on it. at System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(Object data, Boolean copy, In t32 retryTimes, Int32 retryDelay) at System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(Object data) at ArgsTry.Program.Main(String[] args) in c:\apps\ArgsTry\ArgsTry\Program.cs: line 14

C:\Apps\ArgsTry\ArgsTry\bin\Debug>

possible duplicate of Best way to parse command line arguments in C#? — Liam
– Liam, Commented Sep 22, 2015 at 15:36
Have you looked into/open to using a framework to handle command line arguments for you? I'm a fan of CommandLineParser: link. It really does make dealing with incoming command line args a lot easier. — Grace Atwood
– Grace Atwood, Commented Mar 28, 2017 at 16:27

Blazes · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-18 09:08:37Z

31

Passing arguments to a console application is easy:

using System;

public class CommandLine
{
   public static void Main(string[] args)
   {
       for(int i = 0; i < args.Length; i++)
       {
           if( args[i] == "-throw" )
           {
               // call http client args[i+1] for URL
           }
       }
   }
}

As for the clipboard, see:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.clipboard.aspx

answered Apr 18, 2011 at 9:08

Blazes

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1 Comment

tugberk Over a year ago

thanks for your reply. I have updated my qu as above. tried the clipboard thing but received an error.

Peyton Crow · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-18 09:07:13Z

1

See the args below, you can use it to read all the values passed when you run your exe file.

static void Main(string[] args) {

answered Apr 18, 2011 at 9:07

Peyton Crow

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3 Comments

Peyton Crow Over a year ago

args[0] will like "-throw" and args[1] will be the url and args[n...] will be the succeeding values.

tugberk Over a year ago

ok. after that, how can I view the response on the command line? with writeline() ?

Peyton Crow Over a year ago

Console.Writeline() is your friend for that. :)

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