Command arguments in compiler configurations

Question

[edit] I meant to say "command arguments in compiler configs" . for the title.

I am trying to get into game mods. And I am trying to implement the source sdk. one of the steps is to go into debugging in my compiler configurations and add some data to the command arguments

-dev -sw -game "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\SourceMods\firstmod"

Now I know what command arguments are. They are passed through the parameters of WinMain and judging by the name in the compiler configurations. I assume that has something to do with it. or maybe not. I am just not sure if the above would be considered 1 argument or multiple arguments. and what is it trying to achieve by passing a directory through. They weren't too detailed with the information.

Answer 1

Your example has four arguments:

1. -dev
2. -sw
3. -game
4. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\SourceMods\firstmod

Because the last argument is surrounded by quotes, the Windows command line parser will consider it a single argument.

As for what it's trying to achieve by passing a directory, it's impossible to know for sure without seeing what the code does. But one guess is that the build will generate multiple interrelated files that are all supposed to live in a single directory; so you specify the directory and all the files will be created there.