Keep in mind that both the name and the meaning of an argument are specific to a program - there is no general definition, other than a few common conventions like -help for further information on the usage of the tool. Note: In this article we'll solely be focusing on the Unix-like format of - and. The single dash notation is mostly used with single letter options, while double dashes present a more readable options list, which is particularly useful for complex options that need to be more explicit. Many programs on Unix-like systems support both the single and double dash notation. These different approaches exist due to historical reasons. Windows: / followed by either a letter, or word, like /help.Unix-like: - followed by a letter, like -h, or - followed by a word, like -help.In general, arguments are passed to CLI tools differently, depending on your operating system: For example, these options could tell the tool to output additional information, read data from a specified source, or send output to a certain location. These tools can range from simple CLI apps to those that are more complex, like AWS' awscli tool.Ĭomplex tools like this are typically controlled by the user via command line arguments, which allows the user to use specific commands, set options, and more.
With Python being such a popular programming language, as well as having support for most operating systems, it's become widely used to create command line tools for many purposes.