I'm trying to create a script which will have a flag with optional options. With getopts it's possible to specify a mandatory argument (using a colon) after the flag, but I want to keep it optional.
It will be something like this:
./install.sh -a 3
or
./install.sh -a3
where 'a' is the flag and '3' is the optional parameter that follows a.
Thanks in advance.
The getopt external program allows options to have a single optional argument by adding a double-colon to the option name.
# Based on a longer example in getopt-parse.bash, included with
# getopt
TEMP=$(getopt -o a:: -- "$@")
eval set -- "$TEMP"
while true ; do
case "$1" in
-a)
case "$2" in
"") echo "Option a, no argument"; shift 2 ;;
*) echo "Option a, argument $2"; shift 2;;
esac ;;
--) shift; break ;;
*) echo "Internal error!"; exit 1 ;;
esac
done
./install.sh -a 3 gives "option a, no argment" but the argument is "3"
getopt does not seem to allow a space between an option and its optional argument.
man getopt: "If the option has an optional argument, it must be written directly after the option character if present."The following is without getopt and it takes an optional argument with the -a flag:
for WORD; do
case $WORD in
-a?) echo "single arg Option"
SEP=${WORD:2:1}
echo $SEP
shift ;;
-a) echo "split arg Option"
if [[ ${2:0:1} != "-" && ${2:0:1} != ""]] ; then
SEP=$2
shift 2
echo "arg present"
echo $SEP
else
echo "optional arg omitted"
fi ;;
-a*) echo "arg Option"
SEP=${WORD:2}
echo $SEP
shift ;;
-*) echo "Unrecognized Short Option"
echo "Unrecognized argument"
;;
esac
done
Other options/flags also can be added easily.
Use the getopt feature. On most systems, man getopt will yield documentation for it, and even examples of using it in a script. From the man page on my system:
The following code fragment shows how one might process the arguments for a command that can take the options -a and -b, and the option -o, which requires an argument.
args=`getopt abo: $*`
# you should not use `getopt abo: "$@"` since that would parse
# the arguments differently from what the set command below does.
if [ $? != 0 ]
then
echo 'Usage: ...'
exit 2
fi
set -- $args
# You cannot use the set command with a backquoted getopt directly,
# since the exit code from getopt would be shadowed by those of set,
# which is zero by definition.
for i
do
case "$i"
in
-a|-b)
echo flag $i set; sflags="${i#-}$sflags";
shift;;
-o)
echo oarg is "'"$2"'"; oarg="$2"; shift;
shift;;
--)
shift; break;;
esac
done
echo single-char flags: "'"$sflags"'"
echo oarg is "'"$oarg"'"
This code will accept any of the following as equivalent:
cmd -aoarg file file
cmd -a -o arg file file
cmd -oarg -a file file
cmd -a -oarg -- file file
getopt is the right answer, but your long example doesn't demonstrate how to implement an option whose argument is also optional.
In bash there is some implicit variable:
$#: contains number of arguments for a called script/function
$0: contains names of script/function
$1: contains first argument
$2: contains second argument
...
$n: contains n-th argument
For example:
#!/bin/ksh
if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
echo "Wrong number of argument - expected 2 : $#"
else
echo "Argument list:"
echo "\t$0"
echo "\t$1"
echo "\t$2"
fi
while true is not wrong in and of itself -- there needs to be a terminating condition, but that can be a break.break while trying to simplify the example that ships with getopt.#!/bin/bash ;)My solution:
#!/bin/bash
count=0
skip=0
flag="no flag"
list=($@) #put args in array
for arg in $@ ; do #iterate over array
count=$(($count+1)) #update counter
if [ $skip -eq 1 ]; then #check if we have to skip this args
skip=0
continue
fi
opt=${arg:0:2} #get only first 2 chars as option
if [ $opt == "-a" ]; then #check if option equals "-a"
if [ $opt == $arg ] ; then #check if this is only the option or has a flag
if [ ${list[$count]:0:1} != "-" ]; then #check if next arg is an option
skip=1 #skip next arg
flag=${list[$count]} #use next arg as flag
fi
else
flag=${arg:2} #use chars after "-a" as flag
fi
fi
done
echo $flag
in $@ is superfluous. Also, POSIX sh doesn't have arrays. == is not portable.in $@ superfluous? It could be substituded by $list but is needed. I agree the code is not portable and I changed the header to #!/bin/bashfor arg will iterate over "$@" by default.