Question

I have a bash script where you can specify options with “–option parameter”:

if [ ${1:0:2} != '--' ] ; then 
    echo -e "Unrecognized option: $1\n$requestHelpMessage"; exit 1;
fi
if [ ! $2 ];
    then echo -e "Expected parameter for $1\n$requestHelpMessage"; exit 1;
fi
case ${1:2} in
    branch) # do something with $2 here
    batch) # do something with $2 here
    version) # do something with $2 here
    *) # you get the idea
esac

And I want to extend it to be able to handle “–option=parameter” as well. Is there an easy way to split over “=” without special-casing each one?

Answer 1

Instead of using getopt or making your own setup, try using “getopt“. It supports both long (word) and short (character) arguments.

Here’s an example of it in use:

get_inputs () {
    set -- $( getopt -u -l class:,desc:,force,host:,help,verbose "c:d:fh:v?" "$@" )

    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do 
        case "$1" in
            -c|--class)
                CLASS=$2
                shift
                ;;
            -d|--desc)  
                DESCR=$2
                shift
                ;;
            -f|--force)
                FORCE=1
                ;;
            -h|--host)
                HOST=$2
                shift
                ;;
            -v|--verbose)
                VERBOSE=1
                ;;
            --help)
                usage
                exit
                ;;
            *)
                break
                ;;
        esac
        shift
    done
}