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cbashechoargvargc

Is there a way to limit the number of command line arguments?

I am trying to do an implementation of the command 'echo' in C.

I would like to have the entire sentence after the command 'echo' read into argv[1] in the command line instead of having each word passed as a separate argument.

Is that possible in C?

Solution

  • You can't do this directly, because the shell is splitting the arguments even before your program starts.

    Maybe you want something like this:

    #include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  char sentence[500] = { 0 };

  for (int i = 1; i < argc; i++)
  {
    strcat(sentence, argv[i]);
    if (i < argc - 1)
      strcat(sentence, " ");
  }

  printf("sentence = \"%s\"", sentence);
}

    Disclaimer: no bounds checking is done for brevity.

    Example of invoking:

    > myecho Hello World 1 2 3
sentence = "Hello World 1 2 3"