Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

My perl script takes few switches which i'm parsing through GetOpt::Long module.

My script looks like something :

myscript.pl --file="foo" --or --file="bar"

The --file switch takes 2 arguments foo and bar.

The 2 values of file are separated by --or switch. I want to ensure that the --or switch only comes between the 2 --file switches.

I know the --or switch may also be redundant since the hash "%options" will contain the key file which will point anonymous array, [foo bar].
So the script may also look like : myscript.pl --file="foo" --file="bar"

However to ensure readability I want to keep --or switch to make the user understand that the --file switches takes one value or the other.

Does anyone have the idea whether it is possible in the GetOpt::Long module to check the occurence of a switch in between 2 other switches, like --or switch should only occur between the 2 --file switches and should not occur alone by itself.

Thanks in advance

Obelix.

My understanding is that the GetOpt::Long module implements the GNU switch syntax, and in that syntax ordering of the switches does not matter, so your requirements cannot be handled this way.

If ordering really matters, then I think it is a use case to parse the @ARGV directly.