Get help on Linux getopts Command.

   Linux getopts command is use to parse option arguments.  The Linux getopts command is one of bash shell built in command.  The command example below show how to get help on Linux getopts command using shell command, this help show information on how to use the Linux getopts command, the getopts command options and the arguments that can be use with Linux getopts command.

Get Linux getopts command help

  Execute help command and the name of Linux command that we want the help file, the example below we execute help command with -m option to get the help for getopts command using the manpage format.

[linux@fedora11 ~]$ help -m getopts

NAME

    getopts - Parse option arguments.

SYNOPSIS

    getopts optstring name [arg]

DESCRIPTION

    Parse option arguments.

    Getopts is used by shell procedures to parse positional parameters

    as options.

    OPTSTRING contains the option letters to be recognized; if a letter

    is followed by a colon, the option is expected to have an argument,

    which should be separated from it by white space.

    Each time it is invoked, getopts will place the next option in the

    shell variable $name, initializing name if it does not exist, and

    the index of the next argument to be processed into the shell

    variable OPTIND.  OPTIND is initialized to 1 each time the shell or

    a shell script is invoked.  When an option requires an argument,

    getopts places that argument into the shell variable OPTARG.

    getopts reports errors in one of two ways.  If the first character

    of OPTSTRING is a colon, getopts uses silent error reporting.  In

    this mode, no error messages are printed.  If an invalid option is

    seen, getopts places the option character found into OPTARG.  If a

    required argument is not found, getopts places a ':' into NAME and

    sets OPTARG to the option character found.  If getopts is not in

    silent mode, and an invalid option is seen, getopts places '?' into

    NAME and unsets OPTARG.  If a required argument is not found, a '?'

    is placed in NAME, OPTARG is unset, and a diagnostic message is

    printed.

    If the shell variable OPTERR has the value 0, getopts disables the

    printing of error messages, even if the first character of

    OPTSTRING is not a colon.  OPTERR has the value 1 by default.

    Getopts normally parses the positional parameters ($0 - $9), but if

    more arguments are given, they are parsed instead.

    Exit Status:

    Returns success if an option is found; fails if the end of options is

    encountered or an error occurs.

SEE ALSO

    bash(1)

IMPLEMENTATION

    GNU bash, version 4.0.16(1)-release (i386-redhat-linux-gnu)

    Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

    License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

[linux@fedora11 ~]$

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