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This document describes the terminology used in CommandDotNet and the reasoning for it. If you're wondering why we use the term Operand and why operands are referred to as Arguments in the help docs, keep reading.

Terminology for arguments can be confusing. When should an argument be an option, switch, flag, argument or parameter. Should it be named or positional? Is an option always optional?

Part of the confusion is the overloaded nature of of the term argument, as explained in this article. Context determines what is considered an argument.

TLDR: The terminology of this framework.

Argument Terminology Example

Perspective matters#

Argument Perspectives

Let's look at the git stash store command to see how different perspectives see it. Git help describes the usage as git stash store [-m|--message <message>] [-q|--quiet] <commit>.

Let's say we executed this command as follows: git stash store -q -m 'my stash' e7a8621

For programmatic perspective of the...

  • shell: every word is an argument. git stash store -q -m 'my stash' e7a8621
  • application: the arguments are stash store -q -m 'my stash' e7a8621, as assigned to Main(string[] args)
  • stash command: the arguments are store. Once a subcommand is specified, all remaining arguments are for the subcommand.
  • store command: the arguments are -q -m 'my stash' e7a8621.

From the human perspective of...

  • developer: the arguments are -q -m 'my stash' e7a8621. -q and -m are options. 'my stash' and e7a8621 are operands.
  • user: the arguments are e7a8621. -q and -m are options. Common conventions of help documentation distinguishes options from arguments.

CommandDotNet Perspectives#

Console app user#

The user needs to understand how to provide values and so they need to know when arguments are named are which are positional

Console app developer#

The developer of the console app needs to define arguments that are named vs positional, which arguments are required for the operation and which change how it runs.


Let's take a data-migration command. Selecting a customer to run the command for changes the context of the command but the script to run is integral to the operation. The script could be an operand and the company an option.

Framework developer#

The developer of middleware components: often need to operate across all command arguments regardless of type.

Addressed in the following ways#

  • For users of the console app
    • help documentation is the interface.
    • terminoloy: command, option and argument.
  • For developers
    • terminoloy: command, argument, option and operand
    • types: Command, IArgumentNode, IArgument, Option and Operand.
    • Option and Operand are the two concrete types of IArgument
      • Option: named argument
      • Operand: positional argument
    • Command, Option and Operand are the three concrete types of IArgumentNode
    • Command contains collections of Option, Operand and Command (as subcommands)
    • Arguments are defined using
      • parameters: of a command method
      • properties: of an IArgumentModel

Flags are defined as Options with BooleanMode = Implicit. This is the default for Options of type bool and can be changed using AppSettings.DefaultBooleanMode or OptionAttribute.BooleanMode.