MAN.9FRONT.ORG RTFM


     ARG(2)                                                     ARG(2)

     NAME
          ARGBEGIN, ARGEND, ARGC, ARGF, EARGF - process option letters
          from argv

     SYNOPSIS
          #include <u.h>
          #include <libc.h>

          ARGBEGIN {
          char *ARGF();
          char *EARGF(code);
          Rune ARGC();
          } ARGEND

          extern char *argv0;

     DESCRIPTION
          These macros assume the names argc and argv are in scope;
          see exec(2). ARGBEGIN and ARGEND surround code for process-
          ing program options.  The code should be the cases of a C
          switch on option characters; it is executed once for each
          option character.  Options end after an argument --, before
          an argument -, or before an argument that doesn't begin with
          -.

          The function macro ARGC returns the current option charac-
          ter, as an integer.

          The function macro ARGF returns the current option argument:
          a pointer to the rest of the option string if not empty, or
          the next argument in argv if any, or 0.  ARGF must be called
          just once for each option argument.  The macro EARGF is like
          ARGF but instead of returning zero runs code and, if that
          returns, calls abort(2). A typical value for code is
          usage(), as in EARGF(usage()).

          After ARGBEGIN, argv0 is a copy of argv[0] (conventionally
          the name of the program).

          After ARGEND, argv points at a zero-terminated list of the
          remaining argc arguments.

     EXAMPLE
          This C program can take option b and option f, which
          requires an argument.

               #include <u.h>
               #include <libc.h>
               void
               main(int argc, char *argv[])

     ARG(2)                                                     ARG(2)

               {
                       char *f;
                       print("%s", argv[0]);
                       ARGBEGIN {
                       case 'b':
                               print(" -b");
                               break;
                       case 'f':
                               print(" -f(%s)", (f=ARGF())? f: "no arg");
                               break;
                       default:
                               print(" badflag('%c')", ARGC());
                       } ARGEND
                       print(" %d args:", argc);
                       while(*argv)
                               print(" '%s'", *argv++);
                       print("\n");
                       exits(nil);
               }

          Here is the output from running the command prog -bffile1 -r
          -f file2 arg1 arg2

               prog -b -f(file1) badflag('r') -f(file2) 2 args: 'arg1'
               'arg2'

     SOURCE
          /sys/include/libc.h

     SEE ALSO
          getflags(8)