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

Manually parsing options without the use of a specialized function is the most flexible approach, and is sufficient for most simple scripts.

This example will handle a combination of short (POSIX) and long "GNU style" options with option arguments. Notice how both --file FILE and --file=FILE are handled. Typical scripts may also use functions and local variables, which can greatly improve your code. This example however illustrates a strictly POSIX conforming script.

   1 #!/bin/sh
   2 # POSIX
   3 
   4 # Reset all variables that might be set
   5 file=
   6 verbose=0 # Variables to be evaluated as shell arithmetic should be initialized to a default or validated beforehand.
   7 
   8 while :; do
   9     case $1 in
  10         -h|-\?|--help)   # Call a "show_help" function to display a synopsis, then exit.
  11             show_help
  12             exit
  13             ;;
  14         -f|--file)       # Takes an option argument, ensuring it has been specified.
  15             if [ -n "$2" ]; then
  16                 file=$2
  17                 shift
  18             else
  19                 printf 'ERROR: "--file" requires a non-empty option argument.\n' >&2
  20                 exit 1
  21             fi
  22             ;;
  23         --file=?*)
  24             file=${1#*=} # Delete everything up to "=" and assign the remainder.
  25             ;;
  26         --file=)         # Handle the case of an empty --file=
  27             printf 'ERROR: "--file" requires a non-empty option argument.\n' >&2
  28             exit 1
  29             ;;
  30         -v|--verbose)
  31             verbose=$((verbose + 1)) # Each -v argument adds 1 to verbosity.
  32             ;;
  33         --)              # End of all options.
  34             shift
  35             break
  36             ;;
  37         -?*)
  38             printf 'WARN: Unknown option (ignored): %s\n' "$1" >&2
  39             ;;
  40         *)               # Default case: If no more options then break out of the loop.
  41             break
  42     esac
  43 
  44     shift
  45 done
  46 
  47 # if --file was provided, open it for writing, else duplicate stdout
  48 if [ -n "$file" ]; then
  49     exec 3> "$file"
  50 else
  51     exec 3>&1
  52 fi
  53 
  54 # Rest of the program here.
  55 # If there are input files (for example) that follow the options, they
  56 # will remain in the "$@" positional parameters.

This parser does not handle separate options concatenated together (like -xvf being understood as -x -v -f). This could be added with effort, but this is left as an exercise for the reader.

getopts

Unless it's the version from util-linux, and you use its advanced mode, never use getopt(1). Traditional versions of getopt cannot handle empty argument strings, or arguments with embedded whitespace.

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

   1 #!/bin/sh
   2 
   3 # Usage info
   4 show_help() {
   5 cat << EOF
   6 Usage: ${0##*/} [-hv] [-f OUTFILE] [FILE]...
   7 Do stuff with FILE and write the result to standard output. With no FILE
   8 or when FILE is -, read standard input.
   9 
  10     -h          display this help and exit
  11     -f OUTFILE  write the result to OUTFILE instead of standard output.
  12     -v          verbose mode. Can be used multiple times for increased
  13                 verbosity.
  14 EOF
  15 }
  16 
  17 # Initialize our own variables:
  18 output_file=""
  19 verbose=0
  20 
  21 OPTIND=1
  22 # Resetting OPTIND is necessary if getopts was used previously in the script.
  23 # It is a good idea to make OPTIND local if you process options in a function.
  24 
  25 while getopts "hvf:" opt; do
  26     case "$opt" in
  27         h)
  28             show_help
  29             exit 0
  30             ;;
  31         v)  verbose=$((verbose+1))
  32             ;;
  33         f)  output_file=$OPTARG
  34             ;;
  35         '?')
  36             show_help >&2
  37             exit 1
  38             ;;
  39     esac
  40 done
  41 shift "$((OPTIND-1))" # Shift off the options and optional --.
  42 
  43 # Everything that's left in "$@" is a non-option.  In our case, a FILE to process.
  44 printf 'verbose=<%d>\noutput_file=<%s>\nLeftovers:\n' "$verbose" "$output_file"
  45 printf '<%s>\n' "$@"
  46 
  47 # End of file

There is a getopts tutorial which explains what all of the syntax and variables mean. In bash, there is also help getopts, which might be informative.

The advantages of getopts:

  1. It's portable, and will work in any POSIX shell e.g. dash.
  2. It can handle things like -vf filename in the expected Unix way, automatically.

  3. It understands -- as the option terminator and more generally makes sure, options are parsed like for any standard command.

  4. With some implementations, the error messages will be localised in the language of the user.

The disadvantages of getopts:

  1. (Except for ksh93 getopts) it can only handle short options (-h, not --help) without trickery.

  2. It cannot handle options with optional arguments à la GNU.
  3. Options are coded in at least 2, probably 3 places -- in the call to getopts, in the case statement that processes them, and in the help/usage message that documents them.

For other, more complicated ways of option parsing, see ComplexOptionParsing.

Argbash

Argbash is a simple-to-use yet feature-rich code generator that can either generate the parsing code for your script, tailor-made. The project features extensive documentation.

The sample project from above (script accepting a -f|--file|--verbose|...) would use the following template:

   1 #!/bin/bash
   2 
   3 # ARG_OPTIONAL_SINGLE([file],[f],[input file])
   4 # ARG_VERBOSE()
   5 # ARG_POSITIONAL_DOUBLEDASH()
   6 # ARG_LEFTOVERS([other args])
   7 # ARGBASH_GO()
   8 
   9 # [ <-- needed because of Argbash
  10 
  11 if [ "$_arg_verbose" -gt 0 ]; then
  12         echo "Input file: $_arg_file"
  13         echo "Other args: ${_arg_leftovers[*]}"
  14 fi
  15 
  16 # ] <-- needed because of Argbash

Then, executing the result script as ./script.sh -f my-file --verbose -- one two three --file foo would yield

    Input file: foo
    other args: one two three

The project also features a quickstart utility that can generate a minimal template for you like this: argbash-init --opt file --pos arg-positional | argbash - -o basic_script.sh && ./basic_script.sh -h

<The general help message of my script>
Usage: ./basic_script.sh [--file <arg>] [-h|--help] <arg-positional>
        <arg-positional>: <arg-positional's help message goes here>
        --file: <file's help message goes here> (no default)
        -h,--help: Prints help

One can then just fine-tune the template and get a script with argument parsing capabilities with little effort.


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