summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/lib/libc/stdlib/getopt.3
blob: 4340ff54fdb69ee9daa1f488e7bd5f3aff1214c0 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
.\" Copyright (c) 1988, 1991, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
.\"	This product includes software developed by the University of
.\"	California, Berkeley and its contributors.
.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\"	$OpenBSD: getopt.3,v 1.6 1998/05/05 19:36:03 deraadt Exp $
.\"
.Dd April 19, 1994
.Dt GETOPT 3
.Os BSD 4.3
.Sh NAME
.Nm getopt
.Nd get option character from command line argument list
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <unistd.h>
.Vt extern char *optarg;
.Vt extern int   optind;
.Vt extern int   optopt;
.Vt extern int   opterr;
.Vt extern int   optreset;
.Ft int
.Fn getopt "int argc" "char * const *argv" "const char *optstring"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn getopt
function incrementally parses a command line argument list
.Fa argv
and returns the next
.Em known
option character.
An option character is
.Em known
if it has been specified in the string of accepted option characters,
.Fa optstring .
.Pp
The option string
.Fa optstring
may contain the following elements: individual characters, and
characters followed by a colon to indicate an option argument
is to follow.
For example, an option string
.Li "\&""x""
recognizes an option
.Dq Fl x ,
and an option string
.Li "\&""x:""
recognizes an option and argument
.Dq Fl x Ar argument .
It does not matter to
.Fn getopt
if a following argument has leading white space.
.Pp
On return from
.Fn getopt ,
.Va optarg
points to an option argument, if it is anticipated,
and the variable
.Va optind
contains the index to the next
.Fa argv
argument for a subsequent call
to
.Fn getopt .
The variable
.Va optopt
saves the last
.Em known
option character returned by
.Fn getopt .
.Pp
The variable
.Va opterr
and
.Va optind
are both initialized to 1.
The
.Va optind
variable may be set to another value before a set of calls to
.Fn getopt
in order to skip over more or less argv entries.
.Pp
In order to use
.Fn getopt
to evaluate multiple sets of arguments, or to evaluate a single set of
arguments multiple times,
the variable
.Va optreset
must be set to 1 before the second and each additional set of calls to
.Fn getopt ,
and the variable
.Va optind
must be reinitialized.
.Pp
The
.Fn getopt
function
returns \-1
when the argument list is exhausted, or a non-recognized
option is encountered.
The interpretation of options in the argument list may be cancelled
by the option
.Ql --
(double dash) which causes
.Fn getopt
to signal the end of argument processing and returns \-1.
When all options have been processed (i.e., up to the first non-option
argument),
.Fn getopt
returns \-1.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
If the
.Fn getopt
function encounters a character not found in the string
.Va optstring
or detects
a missing option argument it writes an error message to 
.Em stderr 
and returns
.Ql ? .
Setting
.Va opterr
to a zero will disable these error messages.
If
.Va optstring 
has a leading 
.Ql \&:
then a missing option argument causes a
.Ql \&:
to be returned in addition to suppressing any error messages.
.Pp
Option arguments are allowed to begin with
.Dq Li \- ;
this is reasonable but
reduces the amount of error checking possible.
.Sh EXTENSIONS
The
.Va optreset
variable was added to make it possible to call the
.Fn getopt
function multiple times.
This is an extension to the
.St -p1003.2
specification.
.Sh EXAMPLE
.Bd -literal -compact
extern char *optarg;
extern int optind;
int bflag, ch, fd;

bflag = 0;
while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "bf:")) != -1) {
	switch (ch) {
	case 'b':
		bflag = 1;
		break;
	case 'f':
		if ((fd = open(optarg, O_RDONLY, 0)) < 0) {
			(void)fprintf(stderr,
			    "myname: %s: %s\en", optarg, strerror(errno));
			exit(1);
		}
		break;
	case '?':
	default:
		usage();
	}
}
argc -= optind;
argv += optind;
.Ed
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn getopt
function appeared
.Bx 4.3 .
.Sh BUGS
The
.Fn getopt
function was once specified to return
.Dv EOF 
instead of \-1.
This was changed by
.St -p1003.2-92
to decouple 
.Fn getopt
from 
.Pa <stdio.h> .
.Pp
A single dash
.Dq Li -
may be specified as a character in
.Fa optstring ,
however it should
.Em never
have an argument associated with it.
This allows
.Fn getopt
to be used with programs that expect
.Dq Li -
as an option flag.
This practice is wrong, and should not be used in any current development.
It is provided for backward compatibility
.Em only .
By default, a single dash causes
.Fn getopt
to return \-1.
This is, we believe, compatible with System V.
.Pp
It is also possible to handle digits as option letters.
This allows
.Fn getopt
to be used with programs that expect a number
.Pq Dq Li \&-\&3
as an option.
This practice is wrong, and should not be used in any current development.
It is provided for backward compatibility
.Em only .
The following code fragment works in most cases.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
int length;
char *p;

while ((c = getopt(argc, argv, "0123456789")) != -1)
	switch (c) {
	case '0': case '1': case '2': case '3': case '4':
	case '5': case '6': case '7': case '8': case '9':
		p = argv[optind - 1];
		if (p[0] == '-' && p[1] == ch && !p[2])
			length = atoi(++p);
		else
			length = atoi(argv[optind] + 1);
		break;
	}
}
.Ed