Clflag

Clflag is an informal term used in programming to denote a command-line flag or parameter provided to a program at invocation time to influence its behavior. It is not a formal standard, but rather a shorthand that appears in codebases, documentation, and discussions to describe a flag that can be present or carry a value. In practice, a clflag often represents a boolean feature toggle or a setting that selects a mode or option.

In typical command-line interfaces, flags come in short forms (for example -v or -o) and long forms (such as --verbose or --output). Boolean flags are considered active when present and inactive when omitted, while flags that require an argument accept a value following the flag (or after an equals sign in many conventions). Implementations rely on argument parsers and libraries appropriate to the language, such as getopt/getopt_long in C, argparse in Python, or similar tools in other ecosystems. The parser handles validation, help text generation, default values, required or optional arguments, and mutual exclusion constraints.

Good practice with clflags includes documenting their purpose in help output, clarifying whether they are boolean or carry values, and ensuring consistent naming and behavior across related flags. Developers often group related clflags, establish sensible defaults, and validate combinations to prevent conflicting options. While the term remains informal and project-specific, the central idea is that a clflag is a command-line option used to modify program behavior and parsed into a usable value within the program’s control flow.

See also: command-line interface, option parsing, getopt, argparse.