C# Command-Line Parsing of Quoted Paths and Avoiding Escape Characters

Question

How is it possible to parse command-line arguments that are to be interpreted as paths? args[] contains strings that are automatically joined if they are quoted, e.g.:

Answer 1

I had the same frustration. My solution was to use regular expressions. My expected input is a list of paths, some of which may be quoted. The above kludge doesn't work unless all the last arguments are quoted.

// Capture quoted string or non-quoted strings followed by whitespace
string exp = @"^(?:""([^""]*)""\s*|([^""\s]+)\s*)+";
Match m = Regex.Match(Environment.CommandLine, exp);

// Expect three Groups
// group[0] = entire match
// group[1] = matches from left capturing group
// group[2] = matches from right capturing group
if (m.Groups.Count < 3)
    throw new ArgumentException("A minimum of 2 arguments are required for this program");

// Sort the captures by their original postion
var captures = m.Groups[1].Captures.Cast().Concat(
               m.Groups[2].Captures.Cast()).
               OrderBy(x => x.Index).
               ToArray();

// captures[0] is the executable file
if (captures.Length < 3)
    throw new ArgumentException("A minimum of 2 arguments are required for this program");

Can anyone see a more efficient regex?