Playdate.argv - argv contents are inconsistent

SDK Bug Reports
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1

playdate.argv behaves differently between MacOS and Linux (as of SDK 1.13.7). For example, assuming I want to launch whatever.pdx in the simulator and pass something as an argument then I'll run:

PlaydateSimulator whatever.pdx something

and my lua script just prints to the console with:

printTable(playdate.argv)

On Linux

# PlaydateSimulator whatever.pdx something
{
	something
}

On MacOS playdate.argv gives two or three elements depending on how the simulator is invoked:

# alias PlaydateSimulator="$HOME/Developer/PlaydateSDK/bin/Playdate\ Simulator.app/Contents/MacOS/Playdate\ Simulator"
# PlaydateSimulator whatever.pdx something
{
	/Users/peter/Developer/PlaydateSDK/bin/Playdate\ Simulator.app/Contents/MacOS/Playdate\ Simulator,
	whatever.pdx,
	something,
}

# open whatever.pdx --args something
{
	/Users/peter/Developer/PlaydateSDK/bin/Playdate\ Simulator.app/Contents/MacOS/Playdate\ Simulator,
	something,
}

I haven't tested Windows, but this thread suggested the Windows SDK may not implement playdate.argv at all. (worth documenting if still true)

This came up because I am trying to use Docker based CI (see: Headless Simulator - #5 by joyrider3774) to automate screenshot creation. (coming soon!)

The Linux API feels more ergonomic, but I think the MacOS 3 element most closely matches argv in C. Honestly I have no strong opinions other than it should be consistent. This might be worth exposing the unified behavior under a new API (e.g. playdate.simulator.argv) and deprecate playdate.argv but that might be overkill.

Thanks all!

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3

Thanks for the report Peter! I know some work (not yet in the SDK) has been done to address inconsistencies between the simulator and device, so I'll make a note that we need to look at what you've mentioned here as well.

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