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Passing Arguments to a Console App

Passing Arguments to a Console App

Learn about command-line arguments in C# console app, how to access and use them.

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When we run a console app, we often want to change its behavior by passing arguments. For example, with the dotnet command-line tool, we can pass the name of a new project template, as shown in the following commands:

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dotnet new console
dotnet new mvc

We might have been wondering how to get any arguments that might be passed to a console app. In every version of .NET before version 6.0, the console app project template made it obvious, as shown in the following code:

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using System;
namespace Arguments
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
    }
  } 
}

Command-line arguments in top-level program

The string[] args arguments are declared and passed in the Main method of the Program class. They’re an array used to pass arguments into a console app. But in top-level programs, as used by the console app project template in .NET 6.0 and later, the Program class and its Main method are hidden, along with the declaration of the args array.

The trick is that we must know it ...