GETOPT(1) INTERACTIVE UNIX System GETOPT(1)
NAME
getopt - parse command options
SYNOPSIS
set -- `getopt optstring $*`
DESCRIPTION
WARNING: Start using the new command getopts(1) in place of
getopt(1). getopt(1) will not be supported in the next
major release. For more information, see the WARNINGS sec-
tion below.
The getopt command 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(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 positional parameters ($1
$2 ...) of the shell are reset so that each option is pre-
ceded 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
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GETOPT(1) INTERACTIVE UNIX System GETOPT(1)
SEE ALSO
getopts(1), sh(1).
getopt(3C) in the INTERACTIVE SDS Guide and Programmer's
Reference Manual.
DIAGNOSTICS
The getopt command prints an error message on the standard
error when it encounters an option letter not included in
optstring.
WARNINGS
The getopt(1) command 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 new command getopts(1) in place of getopt(1).
getopt(1) will not be supported in the next major release.
For this release, a conversion tool has been provided,
getoptcvt. For more information about getopts and
getoptcvt, see the getopts(1) manual page.
If an option that takes an option-argument is followed by a
value that is the same as one of the options listed in opt-
string (referring to the earlier EXAMPLE section, but using
the following command line: cmd -o -a file), getopt will
always treat -a as an option-argument to -o; it will never
recognize -a as an option. For this case, the for loop in
the example will shift past the file argument.
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