To my knowledge, the three most popular ways how to parse command line arguments in C are:

• Getopt (#include <unistd.h> from the POSIX C Library), which can solve simple argument parsing tasks. If you’re a bit familiar with bash, the getopt built-in of bash is based on Getopt from the GNU libc.
• Argp (#include <argp.h> from the GNU C Library), which can solve more complex tasks and takes care of stuff like, for example:
  • -?, --help for help message, including email address
  • -V, --version for version information
  • --usage for usage message
• Doing it yourself, which I don’t recommend for programs that would be given to somebody else, as there is too much that could go wrong or lower quality. The popular mistake of forgetting about ‘–‘ to stop option parsing is just one example.

The GNU C Library documentation has some nice examples for Getopt and Argp.

• http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Getopt.html
• http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Argp.html

Example for using Getopt

#include <stdbool.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    bool isCaseInsensitive = false;
    int opt;
    enum { CHARACTER_MODE, WORD_MODE, LINE_MODE } mode = CHARACTER_MODE;

    while ((opt = getopt(argc, argv, "ilw")) != -1) {
        switch (opt) {
        case 'i': isCaseInsensitive = true; break;
        case 'l': mode = LINE_MODE; break;
        case 'w': mode = WORD_MODE; break;
        default:
            fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s [-ilw] [file...]\n", argv[0]);
            exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
        }
    }

    // Now optind (declared extern int by <unistd.h>) is the index of the first non-option argument.
    // If it is >= argc, there were no non-option arguments.

    // ...
}

Example for using Argp

#include <argp.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

const char *argp_program_version = "programname programversion";
const char *argp_program_bug_address = "<[email protected]>";
static char doc[] = "Your program description.";
static char args_doc[] = "[FILENAME]...";
static struct argp_option options[] = { 
    { "line", 'l', 0, 0, "Compare lines instead of characters."},
    { "word", 'w', 0, 0, "Compare words instead of characters."},
    { "nocase", 'i', 0, 0, "Compare case insensitive instead of case sensitive."},
    { 0 } 
};

struct arguments {
    enum { CHARACTER_MODE, WORD_MODE, LINE_MODE } mode;
    bool isCaseInsensitive;
};

static error_t parse_opt(int key, char *arg, struct argp_state *state) {
    struct arguments *arguments = state->input;
    switch (key) {
    case 'l': arguments->mode = LINE_MODE; break;
    case 'w': arguments->mode = WORD_MODE; break;
    case 'i': arguments->isCaseInsensitive = true; break;
    case ARGP_KEY_ARG: return 0;
    default: return ARGP_ERR_UNKNOWN;
    }   
    return 0;
}

static struct argp argp = { options, parse_opt, args_doc, doc, 0, 0, 0 };

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    struct arguments arguments;

    arguments.mode = CHARACTER_MODE;
    arguments.isCaseInsensitive = false;

    argp_parse(&argp, argc, argv, 0, 0, &arguments);

    // ...
}

Example for Doing it Yourself

#include <stdbool.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{   
    bool isCaseInsensitive = false;
    enum { CHARACTER_MODE, WORD_MODE, LINE_MODE } mode = CHARACTER_MODE;
    size_t optind;
    for (optind = 1; optind < argc && argv[optind][0] == '-'; optind++) {
        switch (argv[optind][1]) {
        case 'i': isCaseInsensitive = true; break;
        case 'l': mode = LINE_MODE; break;
        case 'w': mode = WORD_MODE; break;
        default:
            fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s [-ilw] [file...]\n", argv[0]);
            exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
        }   
    }
    argv += optind;

    // *argv points to the remaining non-option arguments.
    // If *argv is NULL, there were no non-option arguments.

    // ...
}   

Disclaimer: I am new to Argp, the example might contain errors.