Install optimist using npm install optimist.
optimist exports an object that contains the parsed command
line arguments as the argv property.
Instead of using process.argv, use require('optimist').argv.
The following code creates a JavaScript file that simply logs out the processed arguments.
var argv = require('optimist').argv;
console.log(argv);
Optimist preserves the first two members of the process.argv array, which are the node executable and the path to your JavaScript file as '$0'.
The following code removed the $0.
var argv = require('optimist').argv;
delete argv['$0'];
console.log(argv);
if you run the app you get the following output:
$ node app.js
{ _: [] }
The property argv._ is an array of all the command line arguments that are passed in which are not flags.
Flags are arguments that begin with a minus '-' sign, for example, '-f'.
Let's run app.js and pass in a bunch of arguments.
$ node app.js foo bar bas
{ _: [ 'foo', 'bar', 'bas' ] }
$ node app.js -r -f -s
{ _: [], r: true, f: true, s: true }
$ node app.js -rfs
{ _: [], r: true, f: true, s: true }
Optimist supports flags that take values if you want to accept a timeout flag (-t 100).
Optimist supports them the same way it supports simple flags.
The property matching the flag name is set on argv.tin and the value is set to the value the user passed (in this case 100).
The following code shows Output When Using Flags with Values
$ node app.js -t 100
{ _: [], t: 100 }
$ node app.js -t "la la la la"
{ _: [], t: 'la la la la' }