// [_Command-line flags_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command-line_interface#Command-line_option) // are a common way to specify options for command-line // programs. For example, in `wc -l` the `-l` is a // command-line flag. package main // Go provides a `flag` package supporting basic // command-line flag parsing. We'll use this package to // implement our example command-line program. import ( "flag" "fmt" ) func main() { // Basic flag declarations are available for string, // integer, and boolean options. Here we declare a // string flag `word` with a default value `"foo"` // and a short description. This `flag.String` function // returns a string pointer (not a string value); // we'll see how to use this pointer below. wordPtr := flag.String("word", "foo", "a string") // This declares `numb` and `fork` flags, using a // similar approach to the `word` flag. numbPtr := flag.Int("numb", 42, "an int") boolPtr := flag.Bool("fork", false, "a bool") // It's also possible to declare an option that uses an // existing var declared elsewhere in the program. // Note that we need to pass in a pointer to the flag // declaration function. var svar string flag.StringVar(&svar, "svar", "bar", "a string var") // Once all flags are declared, call `flag.Parse()` // to execute the command-line parsing. flag.Parse() // Here we'll just dump out the parsed options and // any trailing positional arguments. Note that we // need to dereference the pointers with e.g. `*wordPtr` // to get the actual option values. fmt.Println("word:", *wordPtr) fmt.Println("numb:", *numbPtr) fmt.Println("fork:", *boolPtr) fmt.Println("svar:", svar) fmt.Println("tail:", flag.Args()) }