Eclipse Java IDE and Eclipse Plugins

The signature of main method is:

public static void main(String[] args) {

which means that it takes a string array as the input argument. How can those be passed while running as a standalone class with in the Eclipse IDE? How can we use those input parameters with in a program? These are the some of the questions discussed here.

To execute a class having the main method with arguments follow the steps below.

1. Click from menu bar.
2. “ Run ” – > “ Run ” and now select “ Arguments tab ”. Text area against “ Program Arguments ” is available to enter arguments. You can add any number of arguments but each parameter should be separated by a space. Space is the delimiter here.

For instance, if we give following text in the “ Program Arguments ” window,

hello world, hi hallo

then we will have 4 arguments namely.

1. arg 1: hello.
2. arg 2: world.
3. arg 3: hi.
4. arg 4: hallo.

Many people think that comma (,) or semi colon (;) is delimiter but it just a misconception. Delimiter is “ space ”.

Consider the following program arguments:

In the main method, we will print the size of the input array and also will print each argument.

public class MainClass {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println("No. of argumetns are: " + args.length);
       for(int i= 0;i < args.length;i++)
          System.out.println("Argument " + i + " is : " + args[i]);
 
    }
 
}
 
Output:
 
No. of argumetns are: 4
 
Argument 0 is : hello
 
Argument 1 is : world,
 
Argument 2 is : football
 
Argument 3 is : match

We can cast and use the input parameters incase you want something other than String as shown below.

public class MainClass {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
          double dd = new Double(args[0]).doubleValue();
    }
 }