Using getopts to process long and short command line options

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

Answer 1

Inventing yet another version of the wheel...

This function is a (hopefully) POSIX-compatible plain bourne shell replacement for GNU getopt. It supports short/long options which can accept mandatory/optional/no arguments, and the way in which options are specified is almost identical to GNU getopt, so conversion is trivial.

Of course this is still a sizeable chunk of code to drop into a script, but it's about half the lines of the well-known getopt_long shell function, and might be preferable in cases where you just want to replace existing GNU getopt uses.

This is pretty new code, so YMMV (and definitely please let me know if this isn't actually POSIX-compatible for any reason -- portability was the intention from the outset, but I don't have a useful POSIX test environment).

Code and example usage follows:

#!/bin/sh
# posix_getopt shell function
# Author: Phil S.
# Version: 1.0
# Created: 2016-07-05
# URL: http://stackoverflow.com/a/37087374/324105

# POSIX-compatible argument quoting and parameter save/restore
# http://www.etalabs.net/sh_tricks.html
# Usage:
# parameters=$(save "$@") # save the original parameters.
# eval "set -- ${parameters}" # restore the saved parameters.
save () {
    local param
    for param; do
        printf %s\\n "$param" \
            | sed "s/'/'\\\\''/g;1s/^/'/;\$s/\$/' \\\\/"
    done
    printf %s\\n " "
}

# Exit with status $1 after displaying error message $2.
exiterr () {
    printf %s\\n "$2" >&2
    exit $1
}

# POSIX-compatible command line option parsing.
# This function supports long options and optional arguments, and is
# a (largely-compatible) drop-in replacement for GNU getopt.
#
# Instead of:
# opts=$(getopt -o "$shortopts" -l "$longopts" -- "$@")
# eval set -- ${opts}
#
# We instead use:
# opts=$(posix_getopt "$shortopts" "$longopts" "$@")
# eval "set -- ${opts}"
posix_getopt () { # args: "$shortopts" "$longopts" "$@"
    local shortopts longopts \
          arg argtype getopt nonopt opt optchar optword suffix

    shortopts="$1"
    longopts="$2"
    shift 2

    getopt=
    nonopt=
    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
        opt=
        arg=
        argtype=
        case "$1" in
            # '--' means don't parse the remaining options
            ( -- ) {
                getopt="${getopt}$(save "$@")"
                shift $#
                break
            };;
            # process short option
            ( -[!-]* ) {         # -x[foo]
                suffix=${1#-?}   # foo
                opt=${1%$suffix} # -x
                optchar=${opt#-} # x
                case "${shortopts}" in
                    ( *${optchar}::* ) { # optional argument
                        argtype=optional
                        arg="${suffix}"
                        shift
                    };;
                    ( *${optchar}:* ) { # required argument
                        argtype=required
                        if [ -n "${suffix}" ]; then
                            arg="${suffix}"
                            shift
                        else
                            case "$2" in
                                ( -* ) exiterr 1 "$1 requires an argument";;
                                ( ?* ) arg="$2"; shift 2;;
                                (  * ) exiterr 1 "$1 requires an argument";;
                            esac
                        fi
                    };;
                    ( *${optchar}* ) { # no argument
                        argtype=none
                        arg=
                        shift
                        # Handle multiple no-argument parameters combined as
                        # -xyz instead of -x -y -z. If we have just shifted
                        # parameter -xyz, we now replace it with -yz (which
                        # will be processed in the next iteration).
                        if [ -n "${suffix}" ]; then
                            eval "set -- $(save "-${suffix}")$(save "$@")"
                        fi
                    };;
                    ( * ) exiterr 1 "Unknown option $1";;
                esac
            };;
            # process long option
            ( --?* ) {            # --xarg[=foo]
                suffix=${1#*=}    # foo (unless there was no =)
                if [ "${suffix}" = "$1" ]; then
                    suffix=
                fi
                opt=${1%=$suffix} # --xarg
                optword=${opt#--} # xarg
                case ",${longopts}," in
                    ( *,${optword}::,* ) { # optional argument
                        argtype=optional
                        arg="${suffix}"
                        shift
                    };;
                    ( *,${optword}:,* ) { # required argument
                        argtype=required
                        if [ -n "${suffix}" ]; then
                            arg="${suffix}"
                            shift
                        else
                            case "$2" in
                                ( -* ) exiterr 1 \
                                       "--${optword} requires an argument";;
                                ( ?* ) arg="$2"; shift 2;;
                                (  * ) exiterr 1 \
                                       "--${optword} requires an argument";;
                            esac
                        fi
                    };;
                    ( *,${optword},* ) { # no argument
                        if [ -n "${suffix}" ]; then
                            exiterr 1 "--${optword} does not take an argument"
                        fi
                        argtype=none
                        arg=
                        shift
                    };;
                    ( * ) exiterr 1 "Unknown option $1";;
                esac
            };;
            # any other parameters starting with -
            ( -* ) exiterr 1 "Unknown option $1";;
            # remember non-option parameters
            ( * ) nonopt="${nonopt}$(save "$1")"; shift;;
        esac

        if [ -n "${opt}" ]; then
            getopt="${getopt}$(save "$opt")"
            case "${argtype}" in
                ( optional|required ) {
                    getopt="${getopt}$(save "$arg")"
                };;
            esac
        fi
    done

    # Generate function output, suitable for:
    # eval "set -- $(posix_getopt ...)"
    printf %s "${getopt}"
    if [ -n "${nonopt}" ]; then
        printf %s "$(save "--")${nonopt}"
    fi
}

Example usage:

# Process command line options
shortopts="hvd:c::s::L:D"
longopts="help,version,directory:,client::,server::,load:,delete"
#opts=$(getopt -o "$shortopts" -l "$longopts" -n "$(basename $0)" -- "$@")
opts=$(posix_getopt "$shortopts" "$longopts" "$@")
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    #eval set -- ${opts}
    eval "set -- ${opts}"
    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
        case "$1" in
            ( --                ) shift; break;;
            ( -h|--help         ) help=1; shift; break;;
            ( -v|--version      ) version_help=1; shift; break;;
            ( -d|--directory    ) dir=$2; shift 2;;
            ( -c|--client       ) useclient=1; client=$2; shift 2;;
            ( -s|--server       ) startserver=1; server_name=$2; shift 2;;
            ( -L|--load         ) load=$2; shift 2;;
            ( -D|--delete       ) delete=1; shift;;
        esac
    done
else
    shorthelp=1 # getopt returned (and reported) an error.
fi