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GETOPT (1)

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getopt - parse command options

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Synopsis
Description
See Also
Notes

set -- `getopt optstring $*`

getopt rearranges command options for shell scripts. It accepts an optstring argument like getopt(3), i.e. a list of characters (bytes) where each character represents an option letter. A character followed by : indicates that the option has an argument. When an argument list is passed to getopt, it prints it such that each option forms a separate argument, with option and option argument separated by a space, and a '--' separates options and remaining non-option arguments. For example, 'getopt a:bc -bc -aarg' results in the output '-b -c -a arg --'.

sh(1)

getopt cannot handle arguments that contain white space. For this reason, the shell special command getopts is preferred over getopt.