'\" te
.\" Copyright 1989 AT&T
.\" Copyright 2000, Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
.TH getopt 1 "7 Jan 2000" "SunOS 5.11" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
getopt \- parse command options
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
\fBset\fR \fB--\fR ` getopt \fIoptstring\fR $ * `
.fi

.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
.LP
The \fBgetopts\fR command supersedes \fBgetopt\fR. For more information, see NOTES below.
.sp
.LP
\fBgetopt\fR is used to break up options in command lines for easy parsing by shell procedures and to check for legal options. \fIoptstring\fR is a string of recognized option letters; see \fBgetopt\fR(3C). If a letter is followed by a colon (\fB:\fR), the option is expected to have an argument which may or may not be separated from it by white space. The special option \fB-\fR is used to delimit the end of the options. If it is used explicitly, \fBgetopt\fR recognizes it; otherwise, \fBgetopt\fR generates it; in either case, \fBgetopt\fR places it at the end of the options. The positional parameters (\fB$1 $2\fR .\|.\|.\|) of the shell are reset so that each option is preceded by a \fB\(mi\fR and is in its own positional parameter; each option argument is also parsed into its own positional parameter.
.SH EXAMPLES
.LP
\fBExample 1 \fRProcessing the arguments for a command
.sp
.LP
The following code fragment shows how one might process the arguments for a command that can take the options \fB-a\fR or \fB-b\fR, as well as the option \fB-o\fR, which requires an argument:

.sp
.in +2
.nf
\fBset -- `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\fR
.fi
.in -2
.sp

.sp
.LP
This code accepts any of the following as equivalent:

.sp
.in +2
.nf
\fBcmd -aoarg filename1 filename2
cmd -a -o arg filename1 filename2
cmd -oarg -a filename1 filename2
cmd -a -oarg -- filename1 filename2\fR
.fi
.in -2
.sp

.SH ATTRIBUTES
.sp
.LP
See \fBattributes\fR(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
.sp

.sp
.TS
tab() box;
cw(2.75i) |cw(2.75i) 
lw(2.75i) |lw(2.75i) 
.
ATTRIBUTE TYPEATTRIBUTE VALUE
_
Availabilitysystem/core-os
CSIenabled
.TE

.SH SEE ALSO
.sp
.LP
\fBIntro\fR(1), \fBgetopts\fR(1), \fBgetoptcvt\fR(1), \fBsh\fR(1), \fBshell_builtins\fR(1), \fBgetopt\fR(3C), \fBattributes\fR(5) 
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
.sp
.LP
\fBgetopt\fR prints an error message on the standard error when it encounters an option letter not included in \fIoptstring\fR.
.SH NOTES
.sp
.LP
\fBgetopt\fR will not be supported in the next major release. For this release a conversion tool has been provided, namely, \fBgetoptcvt\fR. For more information, see \fBgetopts\fR(1) and \fBgetoptcvt\fR(1).
.sp
.LP
Reset \fBoptind\fR to \fB1\fR when rescanning the options.
.sp
.LP
\fBgetopt\fR does not support the part of Rule 8 of the command syntax standard (see \fBIntro\fR(1)) that permits groups of option-arguments following an option to be separated by white space and quoted. For example,
.sp
.in +2
.nf
\fBcmd -a -b -o "xxx z yy" filename\fR
.fi
.in -2
.sp

.sp
.LP
is not handled correctly. To correct this deficiency, use the \fBgetopts\fR command in place of \fBgetopt\fR.
.sp
.LP
If an option that takes an option-argument is followed by a value that is the same as one of the options listed in \fIoptstring\fR (referring to the earlier EXAMPLES section, but using the following command line: 
.sp
.in +2
.nf
\fBcmd -o -a filename\fR
.fi
.in -2
.sp

.sp
.LP
\fBgetopt\fR always treats it as an option-argument to \fB-o\fR; it never recognizes \fB-a\fR as an option. For this case, the \fBfor\fR loop in the example shifts past the \fIfilename\fR argument.