getopt_long(3C) Standard C Library Functions getopt_long(3C)
NAME
getopt_long, getopt_long_only, getopt_clip - parse long command options
SYNOPSIS
#include <getopt.h>
int getopt_long(int argc, char * const *argv, const char *shortopts, const struct option *longopts, int *indexptr);
int getopt_long_only(int argc, char * const *argv, const char *shortopts, const struct option *longopts, int *indexptr);
int getopt_clip(int argc, char * const *argv, const char *shortopts, const struct option *longopts, int *indexptr);
extern char *optarg;
extern int optind, opterr, optopt;
DESCRIPTION
These functions are provided as a porting aid for GNU/Freeware/OpenBSD utilities. The getopt_long() function is intended to be as closely
compatible with the GNU and OpenBSD implementations as possible, but since these public implementations differ in some corner cases, it is
not possible to be fully compatible with both. The differences are enumerated in the NOTES section.
The getopt_long() function is an aid for implementing the GNU command line argument conventions. See the GNU documentation for the details
of these conventions (glibc 2.2.3). Note that the GNU conventions are not POSIX-conforming. Most notably, the GNU conventions allow for
optional option-arguments and do not enforce that operands must follow options on the command line.
The getopt_clip() function provides an interface similar to getopt_long() except that it implements the Sun CLIP convention, which is
slightly more restrictive than the GNU/Freeware conventions. CLIP is modeled after the GNU/Freeware conventions but removes POSIX viola-
tions and syntactic ambiguities (see intro(1)). Specifically, getopt_clip() is a command line parser that can be used by applications that
follow the Command Line Interface Paradigm or CLIP syntax guidelines 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, and 16. The remaining guidelines are not
addressed by getopt_clip() and are the responsibility of the application.
The getopt_long() function is similar to getopt(3C) except that it accepts options in two forms: words and characters, also referred to as
long options and short options.
The getopt_long() function can be used in two ways. In the first way, every long option understood by the program is mapped to a single
character that is usually a corresponding short option. The option structure is used only to translate from long options to short options.
In the second way, a long option sets a flag specified in the option structure, or stores a pointer to the command line argument in the
address passed to it for options that take arguments. These two methods apply individually to each long option. Both methods can be used in
the same application.
The getopt_long() function accepts command lines that interleave options and operands. The getopt_long() function reorders the elements of
the argv argument such that when all command line arguments have been processed, all operands follow options (and their option-arguments)
in the argv array and optind points to the first operand. The order of options relative to other options and operands relative to other op-
erands is maintained. The argument "--" is accepted as a delimiter indicating the end of options. No argument reorder occurs past this
delimeter. Argument reordering can not be unambiguously performed in all cases. The getopt_long() function depends on a number of internal
heuristics to perform the reordering. The argc and argv arguments are the argument count and argument array as passed to main() (see
exec(2)).
The shortopts argument contains the short-option characters recognized by the command using these functions. If a letter is followed by a
colon (:), the option is expected to have an option-argument that should be separated from it by white space. If a character is followed by
two colons (::), the option takes an optional option-argument. Any text after the option name it is returned in optarg; otherwise, optarg
is set to 0. A whitespace character can never be used to separate an optional option-argument from its associated option. If shortopts
contains the character "W" followed by a semicolon (;), then -W foo is treated as the long option --foo.
If the first character of the shortopts argument is the plus sign (+), getopt_long() enforces the POSIX requirement that operands follow
options on the command line by returning -1 and stopping argument processing upon encountering the first operand (or "--"). This behavior
can also be specified by setting the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT.
A hyphen (-) as the first character of the shortopts argument specifies that options and operands can be intermixed in argv but no argument
reordering is performed. Operands are returned as arguments to option `1', and option processing does not stop until "--" or the end of
argv is found.
If the first character of the shortopts argument (after a potential plus or minus character) is a colon (:), a colon is returned by
getopt_long() in response to a missing argument; otherwise, a question mark (?) is returned for this condition.
The longopts argument describes the long options to accept. It is an array of struct option structures, one for each long option. The
array is terminated with an element containing all zeros.
The struct option structure contains the following members:
const char *nameContains a pointer to the name of the option.
int has_arg Specifies whether the option takes an argument. The possible values, defined in <getopt.h>, are no_argument, optional_argu-
ment, and required_argument.
int *flag Contains the address of an int variable that is the flag for this option. The value contained in val is stored in this
location to indicate that the option was seen. If flag is a null pointer, then the value contained in val is returned when
this option is encountered, otherwise zero is returned.
int val Contains the value to be stored at the variable pointed to by flag or returned by getopt_long() if flag is a null pointer.
For any long option, getopt_long() returns the index in the array longopts of the options definition by storing it in indexptr. The name of
the option can be retrieved with longopts[(*indexptr)].name. Long options can be distinguished either by the values in their val members or
by their indices. The indexptr variable can also distinguish long options that set flags. The value of indexptr after encountering a short
option is undefined.
If an option has an argument, the optarg global variable is set to point to the start of the option argument on return from getopt_long();
otherwise it is set to null. A long option can take an argument in one of two forms: --option=arg or --option arg. If the long option
argument is optional, only the "--option=arg" form can be used to specify the option argument. No argument is specified by the simple form
"--option". The form "--option=" specifies an empty string as the option argument.
Long-option names can be abbreviated if the abbreviation is unique or an exact match for some defined option. An exact match takes prece-
dence over an abbreviated match. Thus, if foo and foobar are acceptable long-option names, then specifying --foo on the command line always
matches the former. Specifying --f or --fo would not be accepted as a match for either.
The getopt_long() function places in optind the argv index of the next argument to be processed. The optind global variable is external and
is initialized to 1 before the first call to getopt_long(). When all options have been processed (that is, up to the first non-option
argument), getopt_long() returns -1. The special option "--" (two hyphens) can be used to delimit the end of the options; when it is
encountered, -1 is returned and "--" is skipped. This ooption is useful in delimiting non-option arguments that begin with "-" (hyphen).
If getopt_long() encounters a short option character shortopts string or a long option not described in the longopts array, it returns the
question mark (?) character. It also returns a question mark (?) character in response to a missing option argument unless the first char-
acter of shortopts is a colon (:) (or the second character, if the first character is either a plus (+) or a minus (-)), in which case it
returns a colon (:). In either case, if the application has not set opterr to 0 and the first character of shortopts is not a colon (:),
getopt_long() prints a diagnostic message to stderr.
The getopt_long_only() function is equivalent to the getopt_long() function except that it allows the user of the application to pass long
options with only a single hyphen (-) instead of "--". The "--" prefix is still recognized. However, when a single hyphen (-) is encoun-
tered, getopt_long_only() attempts to match this argument to a long option, including abreviations of the long option. If a long option
starts with the same character as a short option, a single hyphen followed by that character (and no other characters) will be recognized
as a short option. Use of getopt_long_only() is strongly discouraged by Sun and GNU for new applications.
The behavior of getopt_clip() differs from that of getopt_long() in the following ways:
o The getopt_clip() function does not perform argument reordering. The getopt_clip() function always enforces the POSIX behavior that
all options should precede operands on the command line. Specifically, getopt_clip() does not reorder arguments but returns -1 and
stops processing upon encountering the first operand argument.
o The environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is ignored (the getopt_clip() function behaves as though it were set.)
o The plus and minus characters do not have a special meaning as the first character of the shortopts argument. They are treated as any
other character (other than the colon) would be treated.
o Optional option-arguments are not allowed. The behavior of getopt_clip() when optional_argument is specified as the value of has_arg
in the longopts argument or double colons are included in the shortopts argument is unspecified.
o Long-option abbreviations are not recognized.
o Short options are required to have at least one long-option equivalent. That is, each character in shortopts must appear as the val
member in one or more option structures. Similarly, each long option must have a short option equivalent, meaning that the val member
of each option structure must appear in the shortopts string. If these requirements are not met, getopt_clip() returns -1 and sets
errno to EINVAL.
RETURN VALUES
For short options (other than -W when W; is in shortopts), these functions return the next option character specified on the command line.
For long options, the value returned by these functions depends upon the value of the flag structure element for the identified option. If
flag is NULL, the value contained in the val structure element for the long option encountered on the command line is returned. Other-
wise, these functions return 0 (and the value specified in the val member for the long option is stored into the location pointed to by
flag). When W; is in shortopts and -W is encountered in the command line and the option argument to -W matches a long-option name, the
return state from these functions is as if the long option had been encountered. However, if no argument is specified to the long option,
optarg is set to the option argument of -W (the long-option name or unique prefix). If the option argument of -W does not match a long
option (or unique prefix), the return state is as for any other short option.
A colon (:) is returned if getopt_long() detects a missing argument and the first character of shortopts (other than a possible initial "+"
or "-") was a colon (':').
A question mark (?) is returned if getopt_long() encounters an option letter not included in shortopts or detects a missing argument and
the first character of shortopts (other than a possible initial "+" or "-") was not a colon (:).
The getopt_clip() function expects all short options to have one or more long-option equivalent and all long options to have one short
option equivalent (see NOTES for details). If proper equivalents are not found, getopt_clip() returns -1 and sets errno to EINVAL.
ERRORS
The getopt_clip() function will fail if:
EINVAL A short option does not have at least one long-option equivalent, or a long option does not have at least one short-option
equivalent.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Exmple using getopt().
#include <unistd.h>
#include <getopt.h>
/* Flag set by `--verbose'. */
static int verbose_flag;
int
main (int argc, char **argv)
{
int c;
while(1) {
static struct option long_options[] = {
/* These options set a flag. */
{"verbose", no_argument, &verbose_flag, 1},
{"brief", no_argument, &verbose_flag, 0},
/* The following options don't set a flag. */
{"add", no_argument, NULL, 'a'},
{"append", no_argument, NULL, 'b'},
{"delete", required_argument, NULL, 'd'},
{"create", required_argument, NULL, 'c'},
{"file", required_argument, NULL, 'f'},
{0, 0, 0, 0}
};
/* getopt_long stores the option index here. */
int option_index = 0;
c = getopt_long (argc, argv, "abc:d:f:",
long_options, &option_index);
/* Detect the end of the options. */
if (c == -1)
break;
switch (c) {
case 0:
/* (In this example) only options which set */
/* a flag return zero, so do nothing. */
break;
case 'a':
puts ("option --add (-a)
");
break;
case 'b':
puts ("option --append (-b)
");
break;
case 'c':
printf ("option --create (-c) with value `%s'
", optarg);
break;
case 'd':
printf ("option --delete (-d) with value `%s'
", optarg);
break;
case 'f':
printf ("option --file (-f) with value `%s'
", optarg);
break;
case '?':
/* getopt_long already printed an error message. */
break;
default:
abort ();
}
}
/* Instead of reporting `--verbose'
and `--brief' as they are encountered,
we report the final status resulting from them. */
if (verbose_flag)
puts ("verbose flag is set");
/* Print any remaining command line arguments (not options). */
if (optind < argc) {
printf ("non-option ARGV-elements: ");
while (optind < argc)
printf ("%s ", argv[optind++]);
putchar ('
');
}
exit(0);
}
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of getopt_long(): LANG, LC_ALL, and
LC_MESSAGES.
POSIXLY_CORRECT When set (and the first character of the shortopts argument is neither a plus or minus sign), the POSIX rule that all oper-
ands must follow all options is enforced. Option processing terminates when the first operand is encountered. The
getopt_clip() function ignores the setting of POSIXLY_CORRECT and always behaves as if it were set.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes as characters in shortopts and the longopts[].name
structure members.
USAGE
The getopt_long() function does not fully check for mandatory arguments because there is no unambiguous algorithm to do so. Given an option
string a:b and the input -a -b, getopt_long() assumes that -b is the mandatory argument to the -a option and not that -a is missing a
mandatory argument. Indeed, the only time a missing option argument can be reliably detected is when the option is the final option on the
command line and is not followed by any command arguments.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Interface Stability |Evolving |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|MT-Level |Unsafe |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
intro(1), getopts(1), getopt(3C), getsubopt(3C), gettext(3C), setlocale(3C), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)
NOTES
Use of getopt_long() is discouraged for applications targeted strictly for Solaris. It should be used only for applications targeted at
Solaris and platforms that adhere to the GNU command line conventions. The getopt_long_only() function is provided by Solaris and GNU for
legacy applications and its use is discouraged by both current conventions.
The differences between the Solaris/GNU and OpenBSD versions of these functions are as follows:
o The handling of the hyphen (-) as the first character of the option string in presence of the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT:
Solaris/GNU Operands are returned as arguments to option '1', and option processing does not stop until "--" or the end of argv is
found.
OpenBSD obeys POSIXLY_CORRECT and stops at the first non-option.
o The handling of the hyphen (-) within the shortopts parameter string when not the first character.
Solaris/GNU treats a single hyphen (-) on the command line as an operand.
OpenBSD treats a single hyphen (-) on the command line as an option. BSD recognizes this behavior as incorrect, but maintains
it for compatibility.
o The return value in the event of a missing argument if the first character after "+" or "-" in the option string is not a colon (:)
Solaris/GNU returns "?".
OpenBSD returns ":" (since OpenBSD's getopt does).
o The setting optopt for long options with flag != NULL:
Solaris/GNU sets optopt to val.
OpenBSD sets optopt to 0 (since val would never be returned).
o The setting of optarg for long options without an argument that are invoked with -W (W; in option string):
Solaris/GNU sets optarg to the option name (the argument of -W).
OpenBSD sets optarg to NULL (the argument of the long option).
o The handling of -W with an argument that is not (a prefix to) a known long option (W; in option string):
Solaris/GNU returns 'W' with optarg set to the unknown option.
OpenBSD treats as an error (unknown option) and returns "?" with optopt set to 0 and optarg set to NULL.
o The error messages are different (all).
o The implementations do not permute the argument vector at the same points in the calling sequence. The aspects normally used by the
caller (ordering after -1 is returned, value of optind relative to current positions) are the same. Applications should not depend
upon the ordering of the argument vector before -1 is returned.
SunOS 5.10 10 May 2004 getopt_long(3C)