Wscript.Arguments |
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By Christa Anderson, Contributor
03 Aug 2005 | SearchWinSystems.com |
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Wscript.Arguments contains arguments supplied to the script, such as information not provided in the body of the script. One example of an argument could be the name of a server that you wanted to run a script on. Like command-line executables such as net start, VBScript separates arguments according to where the spaces are. If an argument includes even one space, you'll need to enclose it in quotation marks.
Previous versions of WSH had a single Arguments collection storing all input, organized by index numbers beginning with 0. Arguments works fine in isolation, but it can be cumbersome to work with.
Arguments doesn't provide much guidance and the person writing the script has to reference the arguments according to the order in which they were provided. For example, if the arguments to a script include both a user name and a server name, then any time you want to talk about the name it is imperative that you get the order right or you'll unwittingly give the script the server name when you mean the user name, or vice versa. Using the Named arguments that are a subset of Arguments, you can identify arguments not by their index numbers but by descriptive names, which makes life easier for both the coder and the person running the script you wrote.
I'll explain how to exploit named arguments, a basic coding tool that will stand you in good stead, in next month's column.
Scripting School: Find objects with Windows Scripting Host
 Introduction
Windows Scripting Host objects
Wscript.Arguments
Network resources and user/computer identity
Running external scripts
Working with the environment
Summary
Read Christa's previous columns:
Beginner's guide to scripting
It's time to increase your scripting expertise
Scripting: Connect users to network resources
Scripting School: More on connecting to network resources
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Christa Anderson
When Christa Anderson began working with Windows Server operating systems in 1992, she became increasingly interested in finding more efficient and flexible ways of performing routine tasks. Christa has written extensively about administrative scripting and taught technical sessions on the subject at conferences such as Comdex and CeBIT, helping people who had never done any scripting to write their own scripts in half a day. In addition to her interest in scripting Windows management, Christa is an authority on server-based computing and the program manager for Terminal Services licensing in Longhorn. If you have a scripting question for Christa, please e-mail her at scripting@SearchWinSystems.com.
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