no_argument 0

Description

no argument required

required_argument 1

Description

argument is required

optional_argument 2

Description

argument is optional

Interface status:

externallyDefinedApi

IMPORT_C int getopt_long(int, char *const *, const char *, const struct option *, int *);

Description

The getopt_long function is similar to getopt but it accepts options in two forms: words and characters. The getopt_long function provides a superset of the functionality of getopt . The getopt_long function can be used in two ways. In the first way, every long option understood by the program has a corresponding short option, and the option structure is only used to translate from long options to short options. When used in this fashion, getopt_long behaves identically to getopt . This is a good way to add long option processing to an existing program with the minimum of rewriting.

In the second mechanism, a long option sets a flag in the option structure passed, or will store a pointer to the command line argument in the option structure passed to it for options that take arguments. Additionally, the long option's argument may be specified as a single argument with an equal sign, e.g.,

myprogram --myoption=somevalue 

When a long option is processed, the call to getopt_long will return 0. For this reason, long option processing without shortcuts is not backwards compatible with getopt . It is possible to combine these methods, providing for long options processing with short option equivalents for some options. Less frequently used options would be processed as long options only. The getopt_long call requires a structure to be initialized describing the long options.

The structure is: struct option {
char *name;
int has_arg;
int *flag;
int val;
};

The name field should contain the option name without the leading double dash.

The has_arg field should be one of:

no argument no argument to the option is expect required_argument an argument to the option is required optional_argument an argument to the option may be presented.

If flag is not NULL, then the integer pointed to by it will be set to the value in the val field. If the flag field is NULL, then the val field will be returned. Setting flag to NULL and setting val to the corresponding short option will make this function act just like getopt .

If the longindex field is not NULL, then the integer pointed to by it will be set to the index of the long option relative to longopts.

The last element of the longopts array has to be filled with zeroes.

Examples:

#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <getopt.h>
#include <errno.h>
int main()
{
    int bflag, ch, fd;
    int daggerset;            
          
    int argc = 3;
         
    char *argv[] = { "getopt", "--daggerset","hi" };   
        
    struct option  longopts[] = {    
      { "buffy",      no_argument,            NULL,           'b' },
      { "fluoride",   required_argument,      NULL,           'f' },
      { "daggerset",  no_argument,           &daggerset;,   1 },
      { NULL,         0,                      NULL,           0 }       
    };
         
    bflag = 0;
       
    while ((ch = getopt_long(argc, argv, "bf:", longopts, NULL)) != -1) {      
        switch (ch) {
          
                case 'b':
                    printf("option is \"buffy\"
");
                bflag = 1;
                break;
                 
                case 'f':
                    printf("option is \"fluoride\"
");
                if ((fd = open(optarg, O_RDONLY, 0)) == -1)
                        printf("unable to open %s", optarg);
                break;
                
                case 0:
                if (daggerset) {
                        fprintf(stderr,"Buffy will use her dagger to apply 
fluoride to dracula's teeth
");
                }
                break;
          default:
                printf("unknown option
");
                
        }//end of switch
    }//end of while
 
return 0;
}

Output

Buffy will use her dagger to apply fluoride to dracula's teeth

Parameters

int char *const * const char * const struct optionoption * int *

Return value

int If the flag field in struct option is NULL, getopt_long returns the value specified in the val field, which is usually just the corresponding short option. If flag is not NULL, this function returns 0 and stores val in the location pointed to by flag. This function returns ' : ' if there was a missing option argument, ' ? ' if the user specified an unknown or ambiguous option, and -1 when the argument list has been exhausted.

See also:

• getopt(int,char *,const char *)
• getopt(int,char *,const char *)...

Interface status:

externallyDefinedApi

IMPORT_C int getopt(int, char *const[], const char *);

Description

The getopt function incrementally parses a command line argument list argv and returns the next known option character. An option character is known if it has been specified in the string of accepted option characters, optstring.

The option string 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 x recognizes an option "-x", and an option string x: recognizes an option and argument "-x argument." It does not matter to getopt if a following argument has leading white space.

On return from getopt, optarg points to an option argument, if it is anticipated, and the variable optind contains the index to the next argv argument for a subsequent call to getopt. The variable optopt saves the last known option character returned by getopt.

The variables opterr and optind are both initialized to 1. The optind variable may be set to another value before a set of calls to getopt in order to skip over more or less argv entries.

In order to use getopt to evaluate multiple sets of arguments, or to evaluate a single set of arguments multiple times, the variable optreset must be set to 1 before the second and each additional set of calls to getopt, and the variable optind must be reinitialized.

The getopt function returns -1 when the argument list is exhausted. The interpretation of options in the argument list may be cancelled by the option ‘--’ (double dash) which causes getopt to signal the end of argument processing and return -1. When all options have been processed (i.e., up to the first non-option argument), getopt returns -1.

Examples:

#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
 
int main()
{
        int argc = 3;
         
        char *argv[] =
         {
                 "getopt","-f","hi"
         };
        
        int bflag, ch, fd;
        bflag = 0;
         
        while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "bf:")) != -1) {
        
        switch (ch) {
        case 'b':
                bflag = 1;
                printf("option is 'b' \n");
                break;
        case 'f':
                printf("option is 'f' \n");
                if ((fd = open(optarg, O_RDONLY, 0)) != 0) {
                        (void)fprintf(stderr,
                           "myname: %s: %s\n", optarg, strerror(errno));                
                }                             
                break;
        case '?':
                printf("missing option!");
        default:
                printf("unknown option!");
        }
       
}
argc -= optind;
return 0;
}

Output

option is ’f’
myname: hi: No such file or directory

Bugs:

The getopt function was once specified to return EOF instead of -1. This was changed by -p1003.2-92 to decouple getopt from #include <stdio.h>

A single dash "-" may be specified as a character in optstring, however it should never have an argument associated with it. This allows getopt to be used with programs that expect "-" as an option flag. This practice is wrong, and should not be used in any current development. It is provided for backward compatibility only. Care should be taken not to use ‘-’ as the first character in optstring to avoid a semantic conflict with GNU getopt, which assigns different meaning to an optstring that begins with a ‘-.’ By default, a single dash causes getopt to return -1.

It is also possible to handle digits as option letters. This allows getopt to be used with programs that expect a number ("-3") as an option. This practice is wrong, and should not be used in any current development. It is provided for backward compatibility only. The following code fragment works in most cases.

int ch;
long length;
char *p, *ep;
while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "0123456789")) != -1)
        switch (ch) {
        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] == ’-’ Am]Am] p[1] == ch Am]Am] !p[2]) {
                        length = ch - ’0’;
                        ep = "";
                } else if (argv[optind] Am]Am] argv[optind][1] == ch) {
                        length = strtol((p = argv[optind] + 1),
                            Am]ep, 10);
                        optind++;
                        optreset = 1;
                } else
                        usage();
                if (*ep != ’\0’)
                        errx(EX_USAGE, "illegal number -- %s", p);
                break;
        }

Parameters

int char *const const char *

Return value

int The getopt function returns the next known option character in optstring. If getopt encounters a character not found in optstring or if it detects a missing option argument, it returns ‘?’ (question mark. If optstring has a leading ‘:’ then a missing option argument causes ‘:’ to be returned instead of ‘?.’ In either case, the variable optopt is set to the character that caused the error. The getopt function returns -1 when the argument list is exhausted.

See also:

• getopt_long(int,char *const *,const char *,const struct option *,int *)
• getopt_long(int,char *const *,const char *,const struct option *,int *)...