GETOPT(1-SysV)      RISC/os Reference Manual       GETOPT(1-SysV)



NAME
     getopt - parse command options

SYNOPSIS
     set -- `getopt optstring $*`

DESCRIPTION
     WARNING: Use the command getopts(1) in place of getopt(1).
     getopt(1) had been obsoleted by getopts(1).  For more infor-
     mation, see the WARNINGS section, below.

     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(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 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




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GETOPT(1-SysV)      RISC/os Reference Manual       GETOPT(1-SysV)



SEE ALSO
     getopts(1), sh(1).
     getopt(3C) in the Programmer's Reference Manual.

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

WARNINGS
     getopt(1) 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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