GETOPTS(1)                                                          GETOPTS(1)


NAME
     getopts, getoptcvt - parse command options

SYNOPSIS
     getopts optstring name [arg ...]

     /usr/lib/getoptcvt [-b] file

DESCRIPTION
     getopts is a built-in command to sh(1) used to parse positional
     parameters and to check for legal options.  It supports all applicable
     rules of the command syntax standard (see Rules 3-10, intro(1)).  It
     should be used in place of the getopt(1) command.  See the WARNINGS
     section below.

     optstring must contain the option letters the command using getopts will
     recognize; if a letter is followed by a colon, the option is expected to
     have an argument, or group of arguments, which must be separated from it
     by white space.

     Each time it is invoked, getopts will place the next option in the shell
     variable name and the index of the next argument to be processed in the
     shell variable OPTIND.  Whenever the shell or a shell procedure is
     invoked, OPTIND is initialized to 1.

     When an option requires an option-argument, getopts places it in the
     shell variable OPTARG.

     If an illegal option is encountered, ? will be placed in name.

     When the end of options is encountered, getopts exits with a non-zero
     exit status.  The special option ``--'' may be used to delimit the end of
     the options.

     By default, getopts parses the positional parameters.  If extra arguments
     (arg ...)  are given on the getopts command line, getopts will parse them
     instead.

     /usr/lib/getoptcvt reads the shell script in file, converts it to use
     output.

     -b   the results of running /usr/lib/getoptcvt will be portable to
          earlier releases of the UNIX system.  /usr/lib/getoptcvt modifies
          the shell script in file so that when the resulting shell script is
          executed, it determines at run time whether to invoke getopts(1) or
          getopt(1).

     So all new commands will adhere to the command syntax standard described
     in intro(1), they should use getopts(1) or getopt(3C) to parse positional
     parameters and check for options that are legal for that command (see the
     WARNINGS section below).


EXAMPLE
     The following fragment of a shell program 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 option-argument:

          while getopts abo: c
          do
               case $c in
               a | b)    FLAG=$c;;
               o)        OARG=$OPTARG;;
               \?)       echo $USAGE
                         exit 2;;
               esac
          done
          shift `expr $OPTIND - 1`

     This code will accept any of the following as equivalent:

          cmd -a -b -o "xxx z yy" file
          cmd -a -b -o "xxx z yy" -- file
          cmd -ab -o xxx,z,yy file
          cmd -ab -o "xxx z yy" file
          cmd -o xxx,z,yy -b -a file

SEE ALSO
     intro(1), sh(1), getopt(3C)

WARNINGS
     Although the following command syntax rule (see intro(1)) relaxations are
     permitted under the current implementation, they should not be used
     because they may not be supported in future releases of the system.  As
     in the EXAMPLE section above, a and b are options, and the option o
     requires an option-argument:

          cmd -aboxxx file  (Rule 5 violation:  options with
                option-arguments must not be grouped with other options)
          cmd -ab -oxxx file  (Rule 6 violation:  there must be
                white space after an option that takes an option-argument)

     Changing the value of the shell variable OPTIND or parsing different sets
     of arguments may lead to unexpected results.

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


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