Storing bash script argument with multiple values

Question

I would like to be able to parse an input to a bash shell script that looks like the following.

myscript.sh --casename obstacle1 --output en --variables v P pRes         


        

Answer 1

One conventional practice (if you're going to do this) is to shift multiple arguments off. That is:

variables=( )
case $key in
  --variables)
    while (( "$#" >= 2 )) && ! [[ $2 = --* ]]; do
      variables+=( "$2" )
      shift
    done
    ;;
esac

---

That said, it's more common to build your calling convention so a caller would pass one -V or --variable argument per following variable -- that is, something like:

myscript --casename obstacle1 --output en -V=v -V=p -V=pResidualTT

...in which case you only need:

case $key in
  -V=*|--variable=*) variables+=( "${1#*=}" );;
  -V|--variable)   variables+=( "$2" ); shift;;
esac