getopts command not working at expected

[José Enrique González]

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

[Patrick Wallek]

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

[James R. Ferguson]

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...

[Laurent Menase]

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

[James R. Ferguson]

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...