getopt(1)                                               getopt(1)



     NAME
          getopt - parse command options

     SYNOPSIS
          set -- getopt optstring $*`

     DESCRIPTION
          getopt breaks up options in command lines for easy parsing
          by shell procedures and checks for legal options.  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
          will recognize it; otherwise, getopt will generate it; in
          either case, getopt will place it at the end of the options.
          The shell's positional parameters ($1 $2 ...) 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 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

     FILES
          /bin/getopt

     SEE ALSO



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     getopt(1)                                               getopt(1)



          csh(1), ksh(1), sh(1), getopt(3C).

     DIAGNOSTICS
          getopt prints an error message on the standard error when it
          encounters an option letter not included in optstring.


















































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