Diff for "BashFAQ/035"

How can I handle command-line arguments (options) to my script easily?

Well, that depends a great deal on what you want to do with them. There are several approaches, each with its strengths and weaknesses.

Manual loop

This approach handles any arbitrary set of options, because you're writing the parser yourself. For 90% of programs, it may suffice.

Here's an example that will handle a combination of short (-v, -h) and long (--verbose, --help) options; and also style --verbose=LEVEL.

   1 #!/bin/sh
   2 #
   3 # (C) Copyright 2012 Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net>
   4 #
   5 # This program is free; you can redistribute and/or modify it under
   6 # the terms of GNU General Public license either version 2 of the
   7 # License, or (at your option) any later version.
   8 
   9 Help ()
  10 {
  11     # To learn what TOP LEVEL sections to use in manual page,
  12     # see POSIX/Susv standard about "Utility Description Defaults" at
  13     # http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap01.html#tag_01_11
  14 
  15     echo "
  16 SYNOPSIS
  17     $0 [options] <argument>
  18 
  19 DESCRITPION
  20     This program demonstrates use of options in shell scripts. Works
  21     in any POSIX compatible shell.
  22 OPTIONS
  23     -h, --help
  24         Display program help.
  25 
  26     -v, --verbose [LEVEL], --verbose=[LEVEL]
  27         Enable verbose messages. With optional LEVEL, increase
  28         verbosity. Allowed range is 1..9.
  29 
  30 "
  31     exit 0
  32 }
  33 
  34 Die ()
  35 {
  36     echo "$*" >&2
  37     exit ${1:-1}     # Exit by default with code "1"
  38 }
  39 
  40 Main ()
  41 {
  42     help=""         # Reset all option variables that might be set later
  43     verbose=""
  44     verbose_level=""
  45 
  46     while :
  47     do
  48         case "$1" in
  49             -h | --help)
  50                 help="help"
  51                 shift       # Remove from argument list
  52                 Help
  53                 ;;
  54             --verbose=*)
  55                 # If you want to support --option=VALUE style
  56                 verbose="verbose"
  57                 verbose_level=${1#*=}   # Delete everyting up till "="
  58                 shift
  59                 ;;
  60             -v | --verbose)
  61                 verbose="verbose"
  62                 verbose_level=1
  63                 shift
  64 
  65                 # Support "--verbose LEVEL" by reading next argument.
  66 
  67                 case "$1" in
  68                     [0-9]) verbose_level=$1
  69                            shift
  70                            ;;
  71                 esac
  72                 ;;
  73             --) # End of all options
  74                 shift
  75                 break
  76                 ;;
  77             -*)
  78                 echo "Unknown option: $1" >&2
  79                 shift
  80                 ;;
  81             *)  # no more options. Stop while loop
  82                 break
  83                 ;;
  84         esac
  85     done
  86 
  87     # Suppose, some options are required. Check that we got them
  88 
  89     [ "$verbose" ] || Die "Missing required option --verbose. See --help".
  90 
  91     # <Rest of your code here>
  92 }
  93 
  94 Main "$@"
  95 
  96 # End of file

What is not possible to do with pure shell approach, is to try to parse separate options concatenaed together. Like like -xvf which would understoos as -x -v -f. This could be possible with lot of effort, but in practise it wouldn't be worth it.

You may be interested in knowing that some Bash programmers like to write this at the beginning of their scripts to guard against unused variables:

    set -u     # or, set -o nounset

getopts

Never use getopt(1). getopt cannot handle empty arguments strings, or arguments with embedded whitespace. Please forget that it ever existed.

The POSIX shell (and others) offer getopts which is safe to use instead. Here is a simplistic getopts example:

   1 #!/bin/sh
   2 
   3 # A POSIX variable
   4 OPTIND=1         # Reset in case getopts has been used previously in the shell.
   5 
   6 while getopts "h?vf:" opt; do
   7     case "$opt" in
   8         h|\?)
   9             show_help
  10             exit 0
  11             ;;
  12         v) verbose=1
  13             ;;
  14         f) output_file=$OPTARG
  15             ;;
  16     esac
  17 done
  18 
  19 shift $((OPTIND-1))
  20 
  21 [ "$1" = "--" ] && shift
  22 
  23 echo "verbose=$verbose, output_file='$output_file', Leftovers: $@"
  24 
  25 # End of file

The disadvantage of getopts is that it can only handle short options (-h) without trickery. It handles -vf filename in the expected Unix way, automatically. getopts is a good candidate because it is portable and e.g. also works in dash.

There is a [[http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/howto/getopts_tutorial|getopts tutorial]] which explains what all of the syntax and variables mean. In bash, there is also help getopts, which might be informative.

There is also still the disadvantage that options are coded in at least 2, probably 3 places - in the call to getopts, in the case statement that processes them and presumably in the help message that you are going to get around to writing one of these days. This is a classic opportunity for errors to creep in as the code is written and maintained - often not discovered till much, much later. This can be avoided by using callback functions, but this approach kind of defeats the purpose of using getopts at all.

Here is an example which parses long options with getopts. The basic idea is quite simple: just put "-:" into the optstring. This trick requires a shell which permits the option-argument (i.e. the filename in "-f filename") to be concatenated to the option (as in "-ffilename"). The [[http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/getopts.html|POSIX standard]] says there must be a space between them; bash and dash permit the "-ffilename" variant, but one should not rely on this leniency if attempting to write a portable script.

   1 #!/bin/bash
   2 # Uses bash extensions.  Not portable as written.
   3 
   4 optspec=":h-:"
   5 
   6 while getopts "$optspec" optchar
   7 do
   8     case "${optchar}" in
   9         -)
  10             case "${OPTARG}" in
  11               loglevel)
  12                   eval val="\$${OPTIND}"; OPTIND=$(( $OPTIND + 1 ))
  13                   echo "Parsing option: '--${OPTARG}', value: '${val}'" >&2
  14                   ;;
  15               loglevel=*)
  16                   val=${OPTARG#*=}
  17                   opt=${OPTARG%=$val}
  18                   echo "Parsing option: '--${opt}', value: '${val}'" >&2
  19                   ;;
  20             esac
  21             ;;
  22         h)
  23             echo "usage: $0 [--loglevel[=]<value>]" >&2
  24             exit 2
  25             ;;
  26     esac
  27 done

Silly repeated brute-force scanning

Another approach is to check options with if statements "on demand". A function like this one may be useful:

   1 #!/bin/bash
   2 
   3 HaveOpt ()
   4 {
   5     local needle=$1
   6     shift
   7 
   8     while [[ $1 == -* ]]
   9     do
  10         # By convention, "--" means end of options.
  11         case "$1" in
  12             --)      return 1 ;;
  13             $needle) return 0 ;;
  14         esac
  15 
  16         shift
  17     done
  18 
  19     return 1
  20 }
  21 
  22 HaveOpt --quick "$@" && echo "Option quick is set"
  23 
  24 # End of file

and it will work if script is run as:

• YES: ./script --quick
• YES: ./script -other --quick

but will stop on first argument with no "-" in front (or on --):

• NO: ./script -bar foo --quick
• NO: ./script -bar -- --quick

Of course, this approach (iterating over the argument list every time you want to check for one) is far less efficient than just iterating once and setting flag variables.

It also spreads the options throughout the program. The literal option --quick may appear a hundred lines down inside the main body of the program, nowhere near any other option name. This is a nightmare for maintenance.

Complex nonstandard add-on utilities

bhepple suggests the use of process-getopt (GPL licensed) and offers this example code:

PROG=$(basename $0)
VERSION='1.2'
USAGE="A tiny example using process-getopt(1)"

# call process-getopt functions to define some options:
source process-getopt

SLOT=""
SLOT_func()   { [ "${1:-""}" ] && SLOT="yes"; }      # callback for SLOT option
add_opt SLOT "boolean option" s "" slot

TOKEN=""
TOKEN_func()  { [ "${1:-""}" ] && TOKEN="$2"; }      # callback for TOKEN option
add_opt TOKEN "this option takes a value" t n token number

add_std_opts     # define the standard options --help etc:

TEMP=$(call_getopt "$@") || exit 1
eval set -- "$TEMP" # just as with getopt(1)

# remove the options from the command line
process_opts "$@" || shift "$?"

echo "SLOT=$SLOT"
echo "TOKEN=$TOKEN"
echo "args=$@"

Here, all information about each option is defined in one place making for much easier authoring and maintenance. A lot of the dirty work is handled automatically and standards are obeyed as in getopt(1) - because it calls getopt for you.

• Actually, what the author forgot to say was that it's actually using getopts semantics, rather than getopt. I ran this test:

   ~/process-getopt-1.6$ set -- one 'rm -rf /' 'foo;bar' "'"
   ~/process-getopt-1.6$ call_getopt "$@"
    -- 'rm -rf /' 'foo;bar' ''\'''

• It appears to be intelligent enough to handle null options, whitespace-containing options, and single-quote-containing options in a manner that makes the eval not blow up in your face. But this is not an endorsement of the process-getopt software overall; I don't know it well enough. -GreyCat

It's written and tested on Linux where getopt(1) supports long options. For portability, it tests the local getopt(1) at runtime and if it finds an non-GNU one (ie one that does not return 4 for getopt --test) it only processes short options. It does not use the bash builtin getopts(1) command. -bhepple

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