How to pass command line args to program in SBT 0.13.1?

Question

I just switched to SBT 0.13.1 and either arg handling changed or there's a bug. Here's what I'm testing with (named `sbt-test.scala`): ``` #!/bin/sh SBT_0_13_0="/path/to/sbt-launch-0.13.0.jar" SBT_0_13_1="/path/to/sbt-launch-0.13.1.jar" SBT="$SBT_0_13_1" exec java $JAVA_OPTS -Dsbt.main.class=sbt.ScriptMain -jar "$SBT" $0 "$@" !# /*** scalaVersion := "2.10.3" libraryDependencies ++= Seq( "com.typesafe" % "config" % "1.0.0" ) */ import com.typesafe.config.{ConfigFactory, Config} println(s"Args: ${args mkString ", "}") val cfg = ConfigFactory.parseString( """ |credentials { | user = someone | pass = s3cr3t |} """.stripMargin) println(cfg getString "credentials.user") ``` When I run `./sbt-test.scala --arg=val` I get the following error: ``` [error] Expected ID character [error] Not a valid command: arg [error] arg=val ``` Running the same script with the same argument with SBT 0.13.0 yields the expected: ``` Args: --arg=val someone ``` Similarly, if I turn that executable script into an…

Accepted Answer

See the documentation on Batch mode:

Batch mode

You can also run sbt in batch mode, specifying a space-separated list of sbt commands as arguments. For sbt commands that take arguments, pass the command and arguments as one argument to `sbt` by enclosing them in quotes. For example,

```
$ sbt clean compile "testOnly TestA TestB"
```

In this example, `testOnly` has arguments, `TestA` and `TestB`. The commands will be run in sequence (`clean`, `compile`, then `testOnly`).

So if you don't want `--flag` to be interpreted as a command, you have to quote it with run:

```
$ sbt "run --flag"
```

sbt script runner

The scripting is described in Scripts, REPL, and Dependencies, which seems to say you don't need extra quotes other than the bash quotes:

```
java -Dsbt.main.class=sbt.ScriptMain -Dsbt.boot.directory=/home/user/.sbt/boot -jar sbt-launch.jar "$@"
```

In reality, to make your script work, you'd need another sets of escaped quotes around `$@` like this:

```
exec java $JAVA_OPTS -Dsbt.main.class=sbt.ScriptMain -jar "$SBT" $0 "\"$@\""
```

If this is a regression that started in 0.13.1, you should report to sbt.

How to pass command line args to program in SBT 0.13.1?

Solution

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