Hey there! Is it possible to get the program invocation in Kotlin Native? Let’s say I have a program...

# kotlin-native

[Marc Reichelt]

Hey there! Is it possible to get the program invocation in Kotlin Native? Let’s say I have a program called binary :
1. If the program is named binary , I’d like to get that in Kotlin code
2. If the program is renamed to othername and executed, I’d like to get othername
Is that possible in Kotlin Native?

PS: Basically this is available as argv[0] in C/C++, but doesn’t seem to be available in Java programs.

[Landry Norris]

Kotlin Native’s main function can take in args: Array<String>, which gives you access to the arguments.

[Marc Reichelt]

yes, but it does only print the arguments, not the program name

[Marc Reichelt]

So this example:

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    println(args.toList())
}

Compiled with kotlinc-native -o args args.kt :

$ ./args.kexe one two three
[one, two, three]

[Marc Reichelt]

It will not contain ./args.kexe or args.kexe

[Landry Norris]

That’s interesting. I wonder why it’s different.

[Marc Reichelt]

well - I guess it’s to be consistent to Java, where the program name is removed from args as well

[Marc Reichelt]

at least I thought there would be a way to access this info

[ribesg]

I think you should open an issue. If there is a way to get this info, it would be documented as an answer to this issue and if not, you could justify your needs and maybe get it implemented

[Marc Reichelt]

Thanks @ribesg - I created https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-54606/Print-program-name-in-KotlinNative-executables 🙂

[napperley]

If the Kotlin Native program is running on Linux then the Proc file system (mounted as /proc) can be used to obtain the program name (including the program's absolute path).

[napperley]

Kotlin Native programs have some advantages over JVM programs when it comes to platform integration (access to platform APIs, can deploy everything easily as a single self contained binary, easy central process control etc), especially with Linux/Embedded Linux.

[Marc Reichelt]

Yes, that’s possible of course - but a whole lot of indirection and hoops to get something that should be available by default 🙂