C Language and Libraries Help (clang.hlp) (
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Parsing Command-Line Arguments
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Microsoft C startup code uses the following rules when parsing
arguments given on the DOS command line:
■ Arguments are delimited by white space, which is either a
space or a tab.
■ The caret character, ^, is not recognized as an escape
character or delimiter. The character is handled completely
by the command-line parser in the operating system before
being passed to the argv array in the program.
■ A string surrounded by double quotation marks is interpreted
as a single argument, regardless of white space contained
within. A quoted string can be embedded in an argument.
■ A double quotation mark preceded by a backslash, \", is
interpreted as a literal " character.
■ Backslashes are interpreted literally, unless they
immediately precede a double quotation mark.
If an even number of backslashes is followed by a double
quotation mark, one \ is placed in the argv array
for every \\ pair, and the " is interpreted as a string
delimiter.
If an odd number of backslashes is followed by a double
quotation mark, one \ is placed in the argv array
for every \\ pair, and the " is escaped by the \ remaining,
causing a literal " to be placed in argv.
The following shows the interpreted result passed to argv for
several examples of command-line arguments:
Command-Line Input argv[1] argv[2] argv[3]
"a b c" d e a b c d e
"a b \" c" "\\" d a b " c \ d
a\\\b d"e f"g h a\\\b de fg h
a\\\"b c d a\"b c d
a\\\\"b c" d e a\\b c d e
See also: ◄Expanding Wildcard Arguments►
◄Suppressing Command-Line Processing►
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