Using getopts in bash shell script to get long and

Question

I wish to have long and short forms of command line options invoked using my shell script.

I know that getopts can be used, but like in Perl, I have not been able to do the same with shell.

Any ideas on how this can be done, so that I can use options like:

./shell.sh --copyfile abc.pl /tmp/
./shell.sh -c abc.pl /tmp/

In the above, both the commands mean the same thing to my shell, but using getopts, I have not been able to implement these?

Answer 1

Another way...

# translate long options to short
for arg
do
    delim=""
    case "$arg" in
       --help) args="${args}-h ";;
       --verbose) args="${args}-v ";;
       --config) args="${args}-c ";;
       # pass through anything else
       *) [[ "${arg:0:1}" == "-" ]] || delim="\""
           args="${args}${delim}${arg}${delim} ";;
    esac
done
# reset the translated args
eval set -- $args
# now we can process with getopt
while getopts ":hvc:" opt; do
    case $opt in
        h)  usage ;;
        v)  VERBOSE=true ;;
        c)  source $OPTARG ;;
        \?) usage ;;
        :)
        echo "option -$OPTARG requires an argument"
        usage
        ;;
    esac
done

Answer 2

The bash getopts builtin does not support long option names with the double-dash prefix. It only supports single-character options.

There is a shell tool getopt which is another program, not a bash builtin. The GNU implementation of getopt(3) (used by the command-line getopt(1) on Linux) supports parsing long options.

But the BSD implementation of getopt (e.g. on Mac OS X) does not support long options.

---

Some other answers show a solution for using the bash builtin getopts to mimic long options. That solution actually makes a short option whose character is "-". So you get "--" as the flag. Then anything following that becomes OPTARG, and you test the OPTARG with a nested case.

This is clever, but it comes with caveats:

• getopts can't enforce the opt spec. It can't return errors if the user supplies an invalid option. You have to do your own error-checking as you parse OPTARG.
• OPTARG is used for the long option name, which complicates usage when your long option itself has an argument. You end up having to code that yourself as an additional case.

So while it is possible to write more code to work around the lack of support for long options, this is a lot more work and partially defeats the purpose of using a getopt parser to simplify your code.

Answer 3

The built-in getopts command is still, AFAIK, limited to single-character options only.

There is (or used to be) an external program getopt that would reorganize a set of options such that it was easier to parse. You could adapt that design to handle long options too. Example usage:

aflag=no
bflag=no
flist=""
set -- $(getopt abf: "$@")
while [ $# -gt 0 ]
do
    case "$1" in
    (-a) aflag=yes;;
    (-b) bflag=yes;;
    (-f) flist="$flist $2"; shift;;
    (--) shift; break;;
    (-*) echo "$0: error - unrecognized option $1" 1>&2; exit 1;;
    (*)  break;;
    esac
    shift
done

# Process remaining non-option arguments
...

You could use a similar scheme with a getoptlong command.

Note that the fundamental weakness with the external getopt program is the difficulty of handling arguments with spaces in them, and in preserving those spaces accurately. This is why the built-in getopts is superior, albeit limited by the fact it only handles single-letter options.

Answer 4

I wanted something without external dependencies, with strict bash support (-u), and I needed it to work on even the older bash versions. This handles various types of params:

• short bools (-h)
• short options (-i "image.jpg")
• long bools (--help)
• equals options (--file="filename.ext")
• space options (--file "filename.ext")
• concatinated bools (-hvm)

Just insert the following at the top of your script:

# Check if a list of params contains a specific param
# usage: if _param_variant "h|?|help p|path f|file long-thing t|test-thing" "file" ; then ...
# the global variable $key is updated to the long notation (last entry in the pipe delineated list, if applicable)
_param_variant() {
  for param in $1 ; do
    local variants=${param//\|/ }
    for variant in $variants ; do
      if [[ "$variant" = "$2" ]] ; then
        # Update the key to match the long version
        local arr=(${param//\|/ })
        let last=${#arr[@]}-1
        key="${arr[$last]}"
        return 0
      fi
    done
  done
  return 1
}

# Get input parameters in short or long notation, with no dependencies beyond bash
# usage:
#     # First, set your defaults
#     param_help=false
#     param_path="."
#     param_file=false
#     param_image=false
#     param_image_lossy=true
#     # Define allowed parameters
#     allowed_params="h|?|help p|path f|file i|image image-lossy"
#     # Get parameters from the arguments provided
#     _get_params $*
#
# Parameters will be converted into safe variable names like:
#     param_help,
#     param_path,
#     param_file,
#     param_image,
#     param_image_lossy
#
# Parameters without a value like "-h" or "--help" will be treated as
# boolean, and will be set as param_help=true
#
# Parameters can accept values in the various typical ways:
#     -i "path/goes/here"
#     --image "path/goes/here"
#     --image="path/goes/here"
#     --image=path/goes/here
# These would all result in effectively the same thing:
#     param_image="path/goes/here"
#
# Concatinated short parameters (boolean) are also supported
#     -vhm is the same as -v -h -m
_get_params(){

  local param_pair
  local key
  local value
  local shift_count

  while : ; do
    # Ensure we have a valid param. Allows this to work even in -u mode.
    if [[ $# == 0 || -z $1 ]] ; then
      break
    fi

    # Split the argument if it contains "="
    param_pair=(${1//=/ })
    # Remove preceeding dashes
    key="${param_pair[0]#--}"

    # Check for concatinated boolean short parameters.
    local nodash="${key#-}"
    local breakout=false
    if [[ "$nodash" != "$key" && ${#nodash} -gt 1 ]]; then
      # Extrapolate multiple boolean keys in single dash notation. ie. "-vmh" should translate to: "-v -m -h"
      local short_param_count=${#nodash}
      let new_arg_count=$#+$short_param_count-1
      local new_args=""
      # $str_pos is the current position in the short param string $nodash
      for (( str_pos=0; str_pos<new_arg_count; str_pos++ )); do
        # The first character becomes the current key
        if [ $str_pos -eq 0 ] ; then
          key="${nodash:$str_pos:1}"
          breakout=true
        fi
        # $arg_pos is the current position in the constructed arguments list
        let arg_pos=$str_pos+1
        if [ $arg_pos -gt $short_param_count ] ; then
          # handle other arguments
          let orignal_arg_number=$arg_pos-$short_param_count+1
          local new_arg="${!orignal_arg_number}"
        else
          # break out our one argument into new ones
          local new_arg="-${nodash:$str_pos:1}"
        fi
        new_args="$new_args \"$new_arg\""
      done
      # remove the preceding space and set the new arguments
      eval set -- "${new_args# }"
    fi
    if ! $breakout ; then
      key="$nodash"
    fi

    # By default we expect to shift one argument at a time
    shift_count=1
    if [ "${#param_pair[@]}" -gt "1" ] ; then
      # This is a param with equals notation
      value="${param_pair[1]}"
    else
      # This is either a boolean param and there is no value,
      # or the value is the next command line argument
      # Assume the value is a boolean true, unless the next argument is found to be a value.
      value=true
      if [[ $# -gt 1 && -n "$2" ]]; then
        local nodash="${2#-}"
        if [ "$nodash" = "$2" ]; then
          # The next argument has NO preceding dash so it is a value
          value="$2"
          shift_count=2
        fi
      fi
    fi

    # Check that the param being passed is one of the allowed params
    if _param_variant "$allowed_params" "$key" ; then
      # --key-name will now become param_key_name
      eval param_${key//-/_}="$value"
    else
      printf 'WARNING: Unknown option (ignored): %s\n' "$1" >&2
    fi
    shift $shift_count
  done
}

And use it like so:

# Assign defaults for parameters
param_help=false
param_path=$(pwd)
param_file=false
param_image=true
param_image_lossy=true
param_image_lossy_quality=85

# Define the params we will allow
allowed_params="h|?|help p|path f|file i|image image-lossy image-lossy-quality"

# Get the params from arguments provided
_get_params $*

Answer 5

Maybe it's simpler to use ksh, just for the getopts part, if need long command line options, as it can be easier done there.

# Working Getopts Long => KSH

#! /bin/ksh
# Getopts Long
USAGE="s(showconfig)"
USAGE+="c:(createdb)"
USAGE+="l:(createlistener)"
USAGE+="g:(generatescripts)"
USAGE+="r:(removedb)"
USAGE+="x:(removelistener)"
USAGE+="t:(createtemplate)"
USAGE+="h(help)"

while getopts "$USAGE" optchar ; do
    case $optchar in
    s)  echo "Displaying Configuration" ;;
        c)  echo "Creating Database $OPTARG" ;;
    l)  echo "Creating Listener LISTENER_$OPTARG" ;;
    g)  echo "Generating Scripts for Database $OPTARG" ;;
    r)  echo "Removing Database $OPTARG" ;;
    x)  echo "Removing Listener LISTENER_$OPTARG" ;;
    t)  echo "Creating Database Template" ;;
    h)  echo "Help" ;;
    esac
done

Answer 6

In ksh93, getopts does support long names...

while getopts "f(file):s(server):" flag
do
    echo "$flag" $OPTIND $OPTARG
done

Or so the tutorials I have found have said. Try it and see.