I have a program where you enter an option
-d
and then whether or not you supply a non-optional argument after the option, do something.
Heres my code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <getopt.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define OPT_LIST "d::"
int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
int c;
char string[] = "blah";
while ((c = getopt (argc, argv, OPT_LIST)) != -1)
{
switch (c)
{
case 'd':
printf("%s\n", optarg);
break;
case '?':
fprintf(stderr, "invalid option\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
}
}
So if you enter a non-optional argument after the option, it prints the argument. But I want it to print out the char "string" if the user doesn't supply a non-optional argument (this is why I put the double colon in the OPT_LIST). But I'm not sure how to do this so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Heres what happens when I run the program:
user:desktop shaun$ ./arg -d hello
hello
user:desktop shaun$ ./arg -d
./arg: option requires an argument -- d
invalid option
I'm running a Mac with OS X using C language.
The "optional value of an option" feature is only a GNU libc extension, not required by POSIX, and is probably simply unimplemented by the libc shipped with Mac OS X.
The options argument is a string that specifies the option characters that are valid for this program. An option character in this string can be followed by a colon (‘:’) to indicate that it takes a required argument. If an option character is followed by two colons (‘::’), its argument is optional; this is a GNU extension.
https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Using-Getopt.html
In fact, POSIX.1-2008, section 12.2, "Utility Syntax Guidelines", explicitly forbids this feature:
Guideline 7: Option-arguments should not be optional.
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap12.html#tag_12_02