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Manual page for GETSUBOPT(3)

getsubopt - parse sub options from a string.

SYNOPSIS

int getsubopt(optionp, tokens, valuep)
char	**optionp;
char	*tokens[];
char	**valuep;

DESCRIPTION

getsubopt() is a function to parse suboptions in a flag argument that was initially parsed by getopt(3). These suboptions are separated by commas and may consist of either a single token, or a token-value pair separated by an equal sign. Since commas delimit suboptions in the option string they are not allowed to be part of the suboption or the value of a suboption. An example command that uses this syntax is mount(8), which allows you to specify mount parameters with the -o switch as follows :

	pepper % mount  -o  rw,hard,bg,wsize=1024  speed:/usr   /usr

In this example there are four suboptions: `rw', `hard', `bg', and `wsize', the last of which has an associated value of 1024.

getsubopt() takes the address of a pointer to the option string, a vector of possible tokens, and the address of a value string pointer. It returns the index of the token that matched the suboption in the input string or -1 if there was no match. If the option string at *optionp contains only one subobtion, getsubopt() updates *optionp to point to the NUL at the end of the string, otherwise it isolates the suboption by replacing the comma seperator with a NUL, and updates *optionp to point to the start of the next suboption. If the suboption has an associated value, getsubopt() updates *valuep to point to the value's first character. Otherwise it sets *valuep to NULL.

The token vector is organized as a series of pointers to null-terminated strings. The end of the token vector is identified by a NULL pointer.

When getsubopt() returns, if *valuep is not NULL, then the suboption processed included a value. The calling program may use this information to determine if the presence or lack of a value for this subobtion is an error.

Additionally, when getsubopt() fails to match the suboption with the tokens in the tokens array, the calling program should decide if this is an error, or if the unrecognized option should be passed on to another program.

DIAGNOSTICS

getsubopt() returns -1 when the token it is scanning is not in the token vector. The variable addressed by valuep contains a pointer to the first character of the token that was not recognized rather than a pointer to a value for that token.

The variable addressed by optionp points to the next option to be parsed, or a NUL character if there are no more options.

EXAMPLE

The following code fragment shows how you might process options to the mount(8) command using getsubopt(3).

char *myopts[] = {
#define READONLY	0
			"ro",
#define READWRITE	1
			"rw",
#define WRITESIZE	2
			"wsize",
#define READSIZE 	3
			"rsize",
			NULL };

main(argc, argv)
	int  argc;
	char **argv;
{
	int sc, c, errflag;
	char *options, *value;
	extern char *optarg;
	extern int optind;
	.
	.
	.
	while((c = getopt(argc, argv, "abf:o:")) != -1) {
		switch (c) {
		case 'a': /* process a option */
			break;
		case 'b': /* process b option */
			break;
		case 'f':
			ofile = optarg;
			break; 
		case '?': 
			errflag++;
			break;
		case 'o': 
			options = optarg;
			while (*options != '\0') {
				switch(getsubopt(&options,myopts,&value) {
				case READONLY : /* process ro option */
					break;
				case READWRITE : /* process rw option */
					break;
				   case WRITESIZE : /* process wsize option */
					if (value == NULL) {
						error_no_arg();
						errflag++;
					} else 
						write_size = atoi(value);
					break;
				case READSIZE : /* process rsize option */
					if (value == NULL) {
						error_no_arg();
						errflag++;
					} else 
						read_size = atoi(value);
					break;
				default : 
					/* process unknown token */
					error_bad_token(value);
					errflag++;
					break;
			   	}
			}
		  	break;
		}
	}
	if (errflag) {
		/* print Usage instructions etc. */
	}
	for (; optind<argc; optind++) {
		/* process remaining arguments */
	}
	.
	.
	.
}

NOTES

During parsing, commas in the option input string are changed to nulls.

White space in tokens or token-value pairs must be protected from the shell by quotes.