topic getopts command not working at expected in Operating System - HP-UX

getopts command not working at expected

José Enrique González — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:47:04 GMT

Hi:

I am writing a script using getopts, running in "sh" shell HP-UX 11.11. My optstring is like this

:gru:f:

However, during script tests, when invoked like this:

script -g -u -f

it places the string "-f" in OPTARG variable, instead of detecting the "u" option with missing argument and let OPTARG unset as the help describes it should do.

Of course I could add extra logic to catch this, but it would be better if the command performed as expected, unless there is something I am missing. Thank you for any comment yo have for me.

Jose Enrique Gonzalez
Caracas, Venezuela

Re: getopts command not working at expected

Patrick Wallek — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:53:00 GMT

Can you post your script, show what it actually does and better detail what you expect it to do?

Re: getopts command not working at expected

James R. Ferguson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:08:10 GMT

Hi Jose:

> it places the string "-f" in OPTARG variable, instead of detecting the "u" option with missing argument

I think this is correct. All that this is checking is that something (an argument or a switch) follows '-u'. What follows the '-u' in this example is the '-f' string.

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: getopts command not working at expected

Laurent Menase — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:35:28 GMT

u: means that you want to get an argument.
So -u will get -f as a argument data.
getopts get the arguments sequencially

-guf will find -g with no arg, and -u with "f" as argument

Re: getopts command not working at expected

James R. Ferguson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:02:35 GMT

Hi (again) Jose:

Another way of looking at this is that 'getopts' helps you parse switches and arguments. While it "helps" it still requires "help" (i.e. some additional code).

Regards!

...JRF...