This is often used to enable or configure settings not exposed through the built-in configuration menu of the application, or to load specific configurations (such as benchmark runs, listening servers, etc). Many games and software exposes certain parameters and options for command-line use to allow developers or users to configure the application in a certain way directly at launch, without requiring what might otherwise be rather cumbersome ways to do the same thing. The full launch command used behind-the-scene in those examples are in reality: For example, while many Windows users might be familiar with ipconfig /all or ping for network diagnostics, those 'commands' are made up of the application to run as well as the appropriate command-line argument to affect how the application runs. They usually follow at the end of a launch command, after the name of the executable being run.

A command line argument/parameter/option is additional data provided to an application at launch that might affect how the application behaves.

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