Passing Arguments into your Application

· 198 words · 1 minute read
#application #args #arguments #bool #cmd #command #flags #parse #runtime

Passing arguments in your application can be especially useful when you’re creating tools which can do different things, or the same thing in a different way. In go, you can do with by declaring your arguments as flags. In our example we’re using an argument to determine whether we should run task A or task B. Once you’ve declared your flags, you have to parse them at runtime to populate the variables and then you can use it like any other variable.

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package main

import (
    "flag"
    "fmt"
)

// Param 1: Argument name, called like ./args --taska
// Param 2: Sets the default state, false would mean task B runs by default
// Param 3: Is the description of that command, shown if you call ./args --help
var toRunTaskA = flag.Bool("taska", false, "Whether to run task A or taskB")

func main() {

    flag.Parse()

    if *toRunTaskA {
        runTaskA()
    } else {
        runTaskB()
    }
}

func runTaskA() {
    fmt.Println("Runing Task A...")
}

func runTaskB() {
    fmt.Println("Running Task B...")
}

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Author:  Edd Turtle

Edd is the Lead Developer at Hoowla, a prop-tech startup, where he spends much of his time working on production-ready Go and PHP code. He loves coding, but also enjoys cycling and camping in his spare time.

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