How can i pass an arg which start with '-'?

[genru]

the command definition like mycmd <arg>,

when the argument is like "-xxx"(start with '-'), commander will always treat it as an option.

mycmd -anything

get error: unknown option -anything

mycmd -- -anything

same error.

Quotation marks won't help.

it seems commander.js is unable to handle such argument.

[shadowspawn]

Using -- is the main way of stopping the options processing. I see different behaviour to what you describe. Can you reproduce with a small code example? How is mycmd defined so that you can invoke it as a command?

import { Command } from 'commander';
const program = new Command();
program.argument('<arg>', 'required single argument');
program.parse();
console.log({ args: program.args });

$ node index.mjs
error: missing required argument 'arg'
$ node index.mjs -anything
error: unknown option '-anything'
$ node index.mjs -- -anything
{ args: [ '-anything' ] }

Quotation marks won't help.

Quotation marks seem like they might help, but in fact get consumed by the shell and don't make it into node process.argv and Commander. You can check yourself by logging process.argv to see what reaches your code.

[genru]

@shadowspawn thanks for your quick response.
here is my case

q.ts

#!/usr/bin/env node
import { Command } from "commander";
const cli = new Command();
// Kick it off
cli.description('q command')
  .command("savesub", "save subtitle")
  .parse();

q-savesub.ts

#!/usr/bin/env node
import { Command } from 'commander';
const cli = new Command();
cli
    .description('q: get subtitle')
    .arguments('<string>')
    .parse();
const args: string[] = cli.args;     // get arguments here

...

when i run

q savesub -- -64OXlipMgQc

or

q savesub -64OXlipMgQc

get error error: unknown option '-64OXlipMgQc'

my commander version :"commander": "^14.0.0"

[shadowspawn]

A quick reply (untested). Because your subcommand is a separate external command, I think you need TWO --. One for each layer to disable the option processing twice.

Try either of these:

q savesub -- -- -64OXlipMgQc
q -- savesub -- -64OXlipMgQc 

[shadowspawn]

There is also .allowUnknownOption(). It comes with downside that misspelled options do not generate errors, but using it just for the top level command might fit reasonably with your CLI if no top level options.

[genru]

A quick reply (untested). Because your subcommand is a separate external command, I think you need TWO --. One for each layer to disable the option processing twice.

Try either of these:

q savesub -- -- -64OXlipMgQc
q -- savesub -- -64OXlipMgQc 

Wow, double '--' resolved my problem. both usages work. thanks.