Command-line Arguments and if

Before we let the program actually do anything with the URL we give to it, we will improve the program to let it take the URL as a command-line argument. That is, we want to start the program with the command

webbrowser.pike http://www.roxen.com/

instead of letting the program ask for the URL. We add some code for this:

#! /usr/local/bin/pike

// The Very Simple World Wide Web Browser

int main(int argc, array(string) argv)
{
  write("Welcome to the Very Simple WWW Browser!\n");
  string url;
  if(argc == 2)
    url = argv[1];
  else
  {
    write("Type the address of the web page:\n");
    url = Stdio.stdin->gets();
  }
  write("URL: " + url + "\n");
  return 0;
} // main

This program can handle a command-line argument, but if you don't give one, it will ask for an URL just as before.

There are some new things to explain here:

• The line #! /usr/local/bin/pike only works on a Unix system, as described earlier. You can remove it if you are using Windows NT.

• We have added int argc, array(string) argv as parameters to main. The parameters are like normal variables, except that they will be assigned some values automatically when the program starts.

• The variable argc has the type int, which means integer. It will contain the number of command-line arguments. The program name is counted as an argument, so if you give one argument to the program, argc will have the value 2

• The variable argv will contain the arguments. Its type is array(string), which means array of strings. Each command-line argument is put in a string, and together they form a list or array.

• argc == 2 is a comparison. We check if the value of argc is 2. == is an operator that checks if two things are the same. Some other comparison operators in Pike are < (less than), >= (greater than or equal), and != (not same).

• argv[1] retrieves an element from position number 1 inside an array. The positions are numbered from 0, so position 1 is actually the second element in the array. This is the URL given as argument to the program. argv[0] contains the name of the program, the string "webbrowser.pike".

• The if statement lets Pike choose between different actions. It follows the template or pattern

  if( condition )
    something
  else
    something-else

  If the condition (in our case, that argc == 2) is true, Pike will do the something. If the condition is false, it will do the something-else. In our program, there are two statements in the something-else, so we must enclose it in curly brackets, { and }.