getopt(1)getopt(1)NAMEgetopt - parse command options
SYNOPSIS
set -- `getopt optstring $*`
DESCRIPTION
The getopts(1) command supersedes getopt. For more information, see the
NOTES below.
getopt is used to break up options in command lines for easy parsing by
shell procedures and to check for legal options. It recognizes
supplementary code set characters in the argument given to optstring
according to the locale specified in the LC_CTYPE environment variable
[see LANG on environ(5)].
optstring is a string of recognized option letters; see getopt(3C). If a
letter is followed 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. If it is used
explicitly, getopt recognizes it; otherwise, getopt generates it; in
either case, getopt places it at the end of the options. The positional
parameters ($1 $2 ...) of the shell are reset so that each option is
preceded by a - and is in its own positional parameter; each option
argument is also parsed into its own positional parameter.
EXAMPLE
The following code fragment shows how one might process the arguments for
a command that can take the options a or b, as well as the option o,
which requires an argument:
set -- `getopt abo: $*`
if [ $? != 0 ]
then
echo $USAGE
exit 2
fi
for i in $*
do
case $i in
-a | -b) FLAG=$i; shift;;
-o) OARG=$2; shift 2;;
--) shift; break;;
esac
done
This code accepts 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
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getopt(1)getopt(1)FILES
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxcore
language-specific message file [See LANG on environ(5).]
SEE ALSOgetopts(1), sh(1), getopt(3C)DIAGNOSTICSgetopt prints an error message on the standard error when it encounters
an option letter not included in optstring.
NOTESgetopt may not be supported in a future release. For this release a
conversion tool has been provided, getoptcvt. For more information about
getopts and getoptcvt, see getopts(1).
Reset OPTIND to 1 when rescanning the options.
getopt does not support the part of Rule 8 of the command syntax standard
[see intro(1)] that permits groups of option-arguments following an
option to be separated by white space and quoted. For example,
cmd -a -b -o "xxx z yy" file
is not handled correctly. To correct this deficiency, use the getopts
command in place of getopt.
If an option that takes an option-argument is followed by a value that is
the same as one of the options listed in optstring (referring to the
earlier EXAMPLE section, but using the following command line: cmd -o -a
file), getopt always treats -a as an option-argument to -o; it never
recognizes -a as an option. For this case, the for loop in the example
shifts past the file argument.
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