getopt
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
SYNOPSIS
set -- `getopt optstring $*`
DESCRIPTION
Getopt is used to break up options in command lines for easy parsing by
shell procedures, and to check for legal options. [Optstring] is a
string of recognized option letters (see getopt(3) ); if a letter is fol-
lowed by a colon, the option is expected to have an argument which may or
may not be separated from it by white space. The special option is used
to delimit the end of the options. Getopt will place in the arguments at
the end of the options, or recognize it if used explicitly. The shell
arguments ($1 $2 ...) are reset so that each option is preceded by a and
in its own shell argument; each option argument is also in its own shell
argument.
EXAMPLE
The following code fragment shows how one might process the arguments for
a command that can take the options [a] and [b], and the option [o],
which requires an argument.
set -- `getopt abo: $*`
if test $? != 0
then
echo 'Usage: ...'
exit 2
fi
for i
do
case "$i"
in
-a|-b)
flag=$i; shift;;
-o)
oarg=$2; shift; shift;;
--)
shift; break;;
esac
done
This code will accept any of the following as equivalent:
cmd -aoarg file file
cmd -a -o arg file file
cmd -oarg -a file file
cmd -a -oarg -- file file
SEE ALSO
sh(1), getopt(3)
DIAGNOSTICS
Getopt prints an error message on the standard error output when it en-
counters an option letter not included in [optstring].
HISTORY
The precise best way to use the set command to set the arguments without
disrupting the value(s) of shell options varies from one shell version to
another. varies from one shell version to another.
BSD Experimental June 21, 1993 2
[25;1H[K
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
Copyright (C) 1998
Hurricane Electric.
All Rights Reserved.