vercel-labs--zerolang/docs/articles/modules/args.md

When To Use std.args

In Zerolang, use std.args for hosted command-line programs that need positional arguments, option lookup, or simple numeric argument parsing.

Runnable today:

API	Return	Notes
std.args.len()	usize	Returns the process argument count.
std.args.get(index)	Maybe<String>	Returns the argument at index when present.
std.args.has(index)	Bool	Reports whether index has an argument.
std.args.getOr(index, fallback)	String	Returns the argument or a caller-provided fallback.
std.args.find(name)	Maybe<usize>	Finds the first exact argument match after the executable path.
std.args.valueAfter(name)	Maybe<String>	Returns the argument immediately after a matched option name.
std.args.parseU32(index)	Maybe<u32>	Parses an indexed argument as u32.

Current limits:

• Iterator-style argument APIs.
• Target diagnostics for platforms without process arguments.

Example

pub fn main(world: World) -> Void raises {
    let count: usize = std.args.len()
    let first: String = std.args.getOr(1, "default")
    let maybe_count: Maybe<u32> = std.args.parseU32(2)
    if count > 2 && maybe_count.has {
        check world.out.write(first)
        check world.out.write("\n")
    }
}

Design Notes

The module is hosted-only. Freestanding, edge, and embedded targets should reject it unless they explicitly provide an argument capability.

On native Windows-style targets, std.args is byte-oriented process input. It is not a Unicode argv normalization layer.

Programs that need portable argument semantics should keep target-specific decoding outside the target-neutral core.