getopt(1)							   User Commands							 getopt(1)

NAME

       getopt - parse command options

SYNOPSIS

       set -- ` getopt optstring $ * `

DESCRIPTION

       The getopts command supersedes getopt. For more information, see 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  posi-
       tional  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.

EXAMPLES

       Example 1: Processing the arguments for a command

       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 filename1 filename2
       cmd -a -o arg filename1 filename2
       cmd -oarg -a filename1 filename2
       cmd -a -oarg -- filename1 filename2

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |enabled			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       intro(1), getopts(1), getoptcvt(1), sh(1), shell_builtins(1), getopt(3C), attributes(5)

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, namely, getoptcvt. For more
       information, see getopts(1) and getoptcvt(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" filename

       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 EXAMPLES section, but using the following command line:

       cmd -o -a filename

       getopt always treats it 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 filename argument.

SunOS 5.10							    7 Jan 2000								 getopt(1)