[chef] passing attributes during runtime

[Ameya Ameya Savale < >]

Hi Guys,

I had a question, which I couldn't seem to find an answer for in earlier 
posts.
I might have been searching the wrong keywords, but here it is. Is it possible
to run the chef-client command and pass in custom attributes inline. I need to
write a recipe which takes in a name and a port number and creates certain
directories and files and setups up configuration on the host using the name
and the port number. 

I recently started using chef so everything is quite new to me. I read in
multiple places that you can do it using a json file. If I understood it
correctly then it seems I would need to create a separate json file for every
different name and post number that I want to pass in or update the same json
file before running the recipe with the new name and port, this seems very
tedious.

What would be the correct way of approaching this problem?

- Thanks
Ameya