getopt(1)                  (Essential Utilities)                  getopt(1)


   NAME
         getopt - parse command options

   SYNOPSIS
         set -- `getopt optstring $*`

   DESCRIPTION
         The getopts command supercedes 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.  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)                  (Essential Utilities)                  getopt(1)


   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.

   NOTES
         getopt 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 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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