getopts does not support optional arguments to options

[nigelberlinguer]

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Friday, August 27, 2021 12:07 AM, Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri 
<andreas.kahari@abc.se> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 11:47:24PM +0000, nigelberlinguer wrote:
>
> > Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > On Thursday, August 26, 2021 11:42 PM, Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri 
> > andreas.kahari@abc.se wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 09:58:58PM +0000, nigelberlinguer via wrote:
> > >
> > > > -   Have been told that getopt does not support optional arguments to 
> > > > options. Either you declare the option with : (and failing to provide 
> > > > an argument is an error); or you don't (and providing an argument is an 
> > > > error). Is this true, with no workarounds ? Then I have to write the 
> > > > parsing myself, right ?.
> > >
> > > getopt is not a bash thing (like e.g. the built-in getopts is). It's an
> > > external utility provided by some other software package on your system.
> > > On GNU systems, this is usually provided by a "util-linux" package,
> > > while BSD systems have a different and incompatible variant in their
> > > base system.
> > > You will find an example of the use of the GNU getopt utility that
> > > includes optional option-arguments in the "util-linux" source
> > > distribution:
> > > https://salsa.debian.org/debian/util-linux/-/blob/master/misc-utils/getopt-example.bash
> >
> > Was meaning to say getopts.
>
> I know.
>
> Here's from today on this list (no replies yet):
>
> https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/help-bash/2021-08/msg00190.html
>
> Parts of this thread also deals with this:
>
> https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/help-bash/2021-08/msg00050.html
>
> This recent thread also starts out talking about getopt, bet then
> touches on getopts and the issue of optional option-arguments:
>
> https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/help-bash/2021-07/msg00163.html
>
> The answers to the following StackExchange issue did not get much love
> from the community, but may contain some code that you could use (with
> attribution, obviously):
>
> https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/663803/can-you-make-a-bash-scripts-option-arguments-be-optional

Am looking at the stack exchange one.  I need to study it well though as it
is not so straightforward to understand.