Pass value with space to Ruby script

Question

I've started to get the option parser within Ruby to work with a general amount of success. Unfortunately ruby-docs isn't particularly helpful in what I'm looking to do. is it possible to pass multiple values to one argument, or define an argument as an array and pass multiple values to it?

require 'optparse'

@user_name = nil

opts = OptionParser.new
opts.on("-n name", "--name name", "Name Input"){|n|
@user_name = n
}
opts.parse!(ARGV)

if @user_name.nil? == false
  puts @user_name
else
  puts "Nil Value"
end

Right now if you run this:

ruby nametest.rb -n John Doe

You will get:

John

I'm looking to have both the first and last name printed on the screen.

Answer 1

This isn't a ruby problem, but rather how most command line parsers work. A space delimits a token, so you need to group with quotes or escape space characters.

ruby nametest.rb -n "John Doe"
# or
ruby nametest.rb -n John\ Doe