getopt(1)							   getopt(1)








 NAME
      getopt - parse command options


 SYNOPSIS
      getopt optstring args


 DESCRIPTION
      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 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.


      getopt recognizes two hyphens (--) to delimit the end of the options.
      If absent, getopt places -- at the end of the options.


      The most common use of getopt is in the shell's set command (see the
      example below) where getopt converts the command line to a more easily
      parsed form.  getopt writes the modified command line to the standard
      output.


 EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
    Environment Variables
      LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages are displayed.


      If LC_MESSAGES is not specified in the environment or is set to the
      empty string, the value of LANG is used as a default for each
      unspecified or empty variable.


      If LANG is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of
      "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG.  If any
      internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, getopt
      behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C".	See
      environ(5).


    International Code Set Support
      Single-byte and multi-byte character code sets are supported.


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


 EXAMPLES
      The following code fragment processes the arguments for a command that
      can take the options a or b, and the option o which requires an
      argument:








 Hewlett-Packard Company	    - 1 -    HP-UX Release 10.20:  July 1996












 getopt(1)							   getopt(1)








	   set -- `getopt abo: $*`


	   if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
	       echo $USAGE
	       exit 2
	   fi


	   while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
	       case $1 in
	       -a | -b)
		   FLAG=$1
		   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


 WARNINGS
      getopt option arguments must not be null strings nor contain embedded
      blanks.


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


































 Hewlett-Packard Company	    - 2 -    HP-UX Release 10.20:  July 1996