argc stands for argument count and argv stands for argument values. These are variables passed to main function when it starts executing. When we run a program we can give arguments to that program like:
$ ./a.out hello
Here hello is an argument to the enecutable. This can be accessed in your program. For example,
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
cout << "This program has " << argc << " arguments:" << endl;
for (int i = 0; i < argc; ++i) {
cout << argv[i] << endl;
}
return 0;
}
When you compile and run this program like:
$ ./a.out hello people
This will give the output:
This program has 3 arguments
C:\Users\user\Desktop\hello.exe hello people
Note that the first argument is always the location of the executable executing.
