Parsing arguments to a Java command line program

Use the Apache Commons CLI library commandline.getArgs() to get arg1, arg2, arg3, and arg4. Here is some code:

    import org.apache.commons.cli.CommandLine;
    import org.apache.commons.cli.Option;
    import org.apache.commons.cli.Options;
    import org.apache.commons.cli.Option.Builder;
    import org.apache.commons.cli.CommandLineParser;
    import org.apache.commons.cli.DefaultParser;
    import org.apache.commons.cli.ParseException;

    public static void main(String[] parameters)
    {
        CommandLine commandLine;
        Option option_A = Option.builder("A")
            .required(true)
            .desc("The A option")
            .longOpt("opt3")
            .build();
        Option option_r = Option.builder("r")
            .required(true)
            .desc("The r option")
            .longOpt("opt1")
            .build();
        Option option_S = Option.builder("S")
            .required(true)
            .desc("The S option")
            .longOpt("opt2")
            .build();
        Option option_test = Option.builder()
            .required(true)
            .desc("The test option")
            .longOpt("test")
            .build();
        Options options = new Options();
        CommandLineParser parser = new DefaultParser();

        String[] testArgs =
        { "-r", "opt1", "-S", "opt2", "arg1", "arg2",
          "arg3", "arg4", "--test", "-A", "opt3", };

        options.addOption(option_A);
        options.addOption(option_r);
        options.addOption(option_S);
        options.addOption(option_test);

        try
        {
            commandLine = parser.parse(options, testArgs);

            if (commandLine.hasOption("A"))
            {
                System.out.print("Option A is present.  The value is: ");
                System.out.println(commandLine.getOptionValue("A"));
            }

            if (commandLine.hasOption("r"))
            {
                System.out.print("Option r is present.  The value is: ");
                System.out.println(commandLine.getOptionValue("r"));
            }

            if (commandLine.hasOption("S"))
            {
                System.out.print("Option S is present.  The value is: ");
                System.out.println(commandLine.getOptionValue("S"));
            }

            if (commandLine.hasOption("test"))
            {
                System.out.println("Option test is present.  This is a flag option.");
            }

            {
                String[] remainder = commandLine.getArgs();
                System.out.print("Remaining arguments: ");
                for (String argument : remainder)
                {
                    System.out.print(argument);
                    System.out.print(" ");
                }

                System.out.println();
            }

        }
        catch (ParseException exception)
        {
            System.out.print("Parse error: ");
            System.out.println(exception.getMessage());
        }
    }

You could just do it manually.

NB: might be better to use a HashMap instead of an inner class for the opts.

/** convenient "-flag opt" combination */
private class Option {
     String flag, opt;
     public Option(String flag, String opt) { this.flag = flag; this.opt = opt; }
}

static public void main(String[] args) {
    List<String> argsList = new ArrayList<String>();  
    List<Option> optsList = new ArrayList<Option>();
    List<String> doubleOptsList = new ArrayList<String>();

    for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
        switch (args[i].charAt(0)) {
        case '-':
            if (args[i].length < 2)
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("Not a valid argument: "+args[i]);
            if (args[i].charAt(1) == '-') {
                if (args[i].length < 3)
                    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Not a valid argument: "+args[i]);
                // --opt
                doubleOptsList.add(args[i].substring(2, args[i].length));
            } else {
                if (args.length-1 == i)
                    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Expected arg after: "+args[i]);
                // -opt
                optsList.add(new Option(args[i], args[i+1]));
                i++;
            }
            break;
        default:
            // arg
            argsList.add(args[i]);
            break;
        }
    }
    // etc
}

I like this one. Simple, and you can have more than one parameter for each argument:

final Map<String, List<String>> params = new HashMap<>();

List<String> options = null;
for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
    final String a = args[i];

    if (a.charAt(0) == '-') {
        if (a.length() < 2) {
            System.err.println("Error at argument " + a);
            return;
        }

        options = new ArrayList<>();
        params.put(a.substring(1), options);
    }
    else if (options != null) {
        options.add(a);
    }
    else {
        System.err.println("Illegal parameter usage");
        return;
    }
}

For example:

-arg1 1 2 --arg2 3 4

System.out.print(params.get("arg1").get(0)); // 1
System.out.print(params.get("arg1").get(1)); // 2
System.out.print(params.get("-arg2").get(0)); // 3
System.out.print(params.get("-arg2").get(1)); // 4