managing arguments passed to program

[mac]

Howdy everyone!

I have a functional piece of code that works, but as i keep adding to it, i am not sure that it allows for fair scalability. Basically it looks close to the one below:

My program receives Strings, String array, Boolean etc as part of the arguments. I need a way to *efficiently* go through the arguments list and assign variables that follow arguments.

Here is a sample of arguments:
-sFile <filename>, dFiles <files1>,<file2>,<file3> -outputFile <file> -db yes -sortResults yes

Program *may* receive all or some (I need to account for this somehow)

Order matters. I really would prefer it did not.

What i really would like your help with is an approach that is more efficient then this and allows for an easy way to add new arguments and remove old ones.

Thank you in advance


My code is very close to this:

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
			{
				if (args[i].equals("-Sb")) {
					String a = args[i+1]; //could be a string
					
				} else if (args[i].equals("-Lk")) {
					String[] b = args[i+1].split(","); // or a comma delimited array
				} 
				
				else if (args[i].equals("-Oj")) {
					if (args[i+1].toUpperCase() != null) {
						callSomeOtherMethodAndDoSomething(); //deviate from args check and do something
					}
				}
			}

		}
	}

[gcampton]

What i really would like your help with is an approach that is more efficient then this and allows for an easy way to add new arguments and remove old ones.

Well, personally I haven't come up with a better method, however typically I use a separate method rather than Main and I use a switch rather than complex if/else. eg.
either way it doesn't make too much difference whether you use a separate method or not, but the switch can make it look a bit nicer. and also allows for easier editing

public class Main
{
   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
      int choice=0;
      final int QUIT=-2;

      processArgs(args);
    
      MyProgram ap = new MyProgram();  
      while(choice != QUIT)
      {
         choice = ap.runMainMenu();
      }
   }

   public static void processArgs(String[] args);
   {
      switch (args)
      {
          case '-help':
             displayHelp(); break;
         ......
            ......
       }
   }
}

[mac]

But you can't switch on strings, can you? Numbers, characters and enums only I thought

Can you post a more complete example?

[gcampton]

woops, your right I didn't even realize switches were that restricted.

as normally I use chars to signify a switch or flag command

well nothing wrong with what your doing anyway. I honestly can't see a better way of doing it.