If you need to parse command line arguments in C++, don’t reinvent the wheel, use an existing library. That’s the kind of problem that seems so simple that it’s obvious you’ll quickly hack it. Then you face parsing bugs, spaces within parameters, special characters, optional parameters, config files, etc. Eventually you’ll switch to a library, so save time and do it from the beginning.

Many libraries are available out there for C++ applications, I’ll focus on two of them : Boost.Program_options and GetPot. Continue reading →