getoptcvt(1)                                                       User Commands                                                      getoptcvt(1)

NAME

       getoptcvt - convert to getopts to parse command options

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/lib/getoptcvt [-b] filename

       /usr/lib/getoptcvt

DESCRIPTION

       /usr/lib/getoptcvt reads the shell script in filename, converts it to use getopts instead of getopt, and writes the results on the standard
       output.

       getopts is a built-in Bourne shell command used to parse positional parameters and to check for valid options. See sh(1). 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 command. (See the
       NOTES section below.) The syntax for the shell's built-in getopts command is:

       getopts optstring name [ argument...]

       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 places 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 script 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 (argument ...)  are given on the getopts command line, getopts
       parses them instead.

       So that all new commands will adhere to the command syntax standard described in intro(1), they should use getopts or getopt to parse posi-
       tional parameters and check for options that are valid for that command (see the NOTES section below).

OPTIONS

       The following option is supported:

       -b       Makes  the converted script portable to earlier releases of the UNIX system. /usr/lib/getoptcvt modifies the shell script in file-
                name so that when the resulting shell script is executed, it determines at run time whether to invoke getopts or getopt.

EXAMPLES

       Example 1: Processing the arguments for a command

       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`

       Example 2: Equivalent code expressions

       This code accepts any of the following as equivalent:

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

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See  environ(5)  for  descriptions  of the following environment variables that affect the execution of getopts: LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and
       NLSPATH.

       OPTIND          This variable is used by getoptcvt as the index of the next argument to be processed.

       OPTARG          This variable is used by getoptcvt to store the argument if an option is using arguments.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned:

       0        An option, specified or unspecified by optstring, was found.

       >0       The end of options was encountered or an error occurred.

ATTRIBUTES

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

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

SEE ALSO

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

DIAGNOSTICS

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

NOTES

       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 EXAMPLES section above, -a and -b are options, and the
       option -o requires an option-argument.  The following example violates Rule 5:  options with option-arguments  must  not  be  grouped  with
       other options:

       example% cmd -aboxxx filename

       The following example violates Rule 6: there must be white space after an option that takes an option-argument:

       example% cmd -ab oxxx filename

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

SunOS 5.10                                                          7 Jan 2000                                                        getoptcvt(1)