osf1 man page for getopt

getopt(1)						      General Commands Manual							 getopt(1)

NAME
       getopt - Parses command line flags and arguments

SYNOPSIS
       getopt format tokens

DESCRIPTION
       The  getopt command is used to parse a list of tokens using a format that specifies expected flags and arguments.  A flag is a single ASCII
       letter and, when followed by a : (colon), is expected to take a modifying argument that may or may not be separated from it by one or  more
       tabs or spaces.	(You can include multi-byte characters in arguments, but not as flag letters.)

       The getopt command completes processing when it has read all tokens or when it encounters the special token -- (double dash).  It then out-
       puts the processed flags, a --, and any remaining tokens.

       If a token fails to match a flag, getopt writes a message to standard error.

NOTES
       In the csh, use the following command to run getopt:

       set argv=`getopt flag_string $*`

EXAMPLES
       The following is an example of the use of getopt in a skeleton shell script to parse options:

       #!/bin/sh # parse command line into arguments set -- `getopt a:bc $*` # check result of parsing if [ $? != 0 ] then
	       exit 1 fi while [ $1 != -- ] do
	       case $1 in
	       -a)     # set up the -a flag
		       AFLG=1
		       AARG=$2
		       shift;;
	       -b)     # set up the -b flag
		       BFLG=1;;
	       -c)     # set up the -c flag
		       CFLG=1;;
	       esac
	       shift  # next flag done shift	 # skip double dash # now do the work .  .  .

       The following are all equivalent arguments to the script:

       -a ARG -b -c -- A B C -a ARG -bc -- A B C -aARG -b -c -- A B C -b -c -a ARG -- A B C

SEE ALSO
       Commands:  sh(1)

       Functions:  getopt(3)

																	 getopt(1)