Command line arguments being reformatted

Question

I'm starting to write a C# console app (using VS2022, and .NET 7.0) with the following sample command line:

 myapp text="some random text"

In args[], the parameter is showing up as:

 text=some random text

In the string returned by Environment.CommandLine, the command line (excluding the application path portion) is:

"text=some random text"

When parsed into args[], the quotes are being removed. When returned by Environment.CommandLine, the quotes are being moved to include the entire argument.

Is there a way of getting the command line without it being reformatted?

Answer 1

Hi, Richard Rosenheim
Double quotation marks (") is used to include spaces within an argument. For your reference: command line arguments

Try text="\"some random text\""

        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            string[] arguments = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs();
            Console.WriteLine("GetCommandLineArgs: {0}", string.Join(", ", arguments));
        }

Output:

Best regards,

Minxin Yu

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Answer 2

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate your comments.

But, to keep it simple for the end-users, and avoid them having to do things like double quotes, etc., I adjusted my code to just handle the command line as Windows is wanting to reformatting it.

Answer 3

Quotes are removed from arguments, see the following code sample to place quotes in and how to traverse arguments.