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AutoOpts for Shell Scripts

AutoOpts may be used with shell scripts by automatically creating a complete program that will process command line options and pass back the results to the invoking shell by issuing shell variable assignment commands. It may also be used to generate portable shell code that can be inserted into your script.

The functionality of these features, of course, is somewhat constrained compared with the normal program facilities. Specifically, you cannot invoke callout procedures with either of these methods. Additionally, if you generate a shell script:

1. You cannot obtain options from RC/INI files.
2. You cannot obtain options from environment variables.
3. You cannot save the option state to an option file.
4. Option conflict/requirement verification is disabled.

Both of these methods are enabled by running AutoGen on the definitions file with the additional global attribute:

test-main [ = proc-to-call ] ;

If you do not supply a proc-to-call, it will default to putBourneShell. That will produce a program that will process the options and generate shell text for the invoking shell to interpret. If you supply the name, putShellParse, then you will have a program that will generate a shell script that can parse the options. If you supply a different procedure name, you will have to provide that routine and it may do whatever you like.

In summary, you will need to issue approximately the following two commands to have a working program:

autogen -L <opt-template-dir> program.def
cc -o progopts -L <opt-lib-dir> -I <opt-include-dir> \
        -DTEST_program_OPTS program.c -lopts

The resulting program can be used within your shell script as follows:

eval `./progopts $@`
if [ -z "${OPTION_CT}" ] ; then exit 1 ; fi
shift ${OPTION_CT}

If you had used "test-main = putShellParse" instead, then you can, at this point, merely run the program and it will write the parsing script to standard out. You may also provide this program with command line options to specify the shell script file to create or edit, and you may specify the shell program to use on the first shell script line. That program's usage text would look something like this:

genshellopt - Generate Shell Option Processing Script - Ver. 1
USAGE:  genshellopt [ -<flag> [<val>] | --<name>[{=| }<val>] ]...
  Flg Arg Option-Name    Description
   -o YES script         Output Script File
   -s YES shell          Shell name (follows "#!" magic)
                                - disabled as --no-shell
                                - enabled by default
   -v opt version        Output version information and exit
   -? no  help           Display usage information and exit
   -! no  more-help      Extended usage information passed thru pager

Options may be specified by doubled hyphens and their name
or by a single hyphen and the flag character (option value).

Note that `shell' is only useful if the output file does not already
exist.  If it does, then the shell name and optional first argument
will be extracted from the script file.

If the script file already exists and contains Automated Option Processing
text, the second line of the file through the ending tag will be replaced
by the newly generated text.  The first `#!' line will be regenerated.

= = = = = = = =

This incarnation of genshell will produce
a shell script to parse the options for getdefs:

getdefs - AutoGen Definition Extraction Tool - Ver. 1.2
USAGE:  getdefs { <option-name>[{=| }<val>] }...
   Arg Option-Name   Req?  Description
   YES defs-to-get    opt  Regexp to look for after the "/*="
   opt ordering       opt  Alphabetize or use named file
   Num first-index    opt  The first index to apply to groups
   YES input          YES  Input file to search for defs
   YES subblock       opt  subblock definition names
   opt filelist       opt  Insert source file names into defs
   YES assign         opt  Global assignments
   YES common-assign  opt  Assignments common to all blocks
   YES copy           opt  File(s) to copy into definitions
   opt srcfile        opt  Insert source file name into each def
   opt linenum        opt  Insert source line number into each def
   YES output         opt  Output file to open
   opt autogen        opt  Invoke AutoGen with defs
   YES template       opt  Template Name
   YES agarg          opt  AutoGen Argument
   YES base-name      opt  Base name for output file(s)
   opt version        opt  Output version information and exit
   no  help           opt  Display usage information and exit
   no  more-help      opt  Extended usage information passed thru pager

All arguments are named options.

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