Get Command Line Arguments in a Windows Forms Application
A useful technique for your applications is allowing them to parse command line arguments. This can give a lot of extra functionality to your application, for instance to pass the name of a file to open on the command line.
Most of the examples you’ll find online will show you something like this:
static void Main(string[] args) { foreach(string arg in args) { Console.WriteLine(arg); } Console.ReadLine(); }
That’s all fine and good, except that won’t work for our Windows Forms application without changing the type of the project to console, etc.
Thankfully, this is completely unnecessary, because you can simply do this:
string[] args = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs(); foreach(string arg in args){ // do stuff }
And you can use this anywhere in your application, you aren’t just restricted to using it in the main() method like in a console application.
Daily Email Updates
You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your name and email below:
or you can just add string[] args to the main in your windows forms app. its all the same main() whether its console or winforms
You might prefer to use args[] string added to main, otherwise using Environment you will get the parameter with the path to the executable.
Hey there! I`m struggling to get this work, but I`m getting constantly the path of the app (C:\User Profiles\Marisa\Escritorio\hachito\WindowsApplication1\WindowsApplication1\bin\Debug\WindowsApplication1.exe) instead of the parameter. I copy the .exe from the debug directory and then from the command line try to invoke the .exe with WindowsApplication1 (”hello world”), WindowsApplication1 “hello world”, WindowsApplication1(hello world), etc and it doesnt work… any clue? thanks for your time!!
thank you !!!!
Great! I was just looking for it.