getdate() and setdate() function in C with Examples

getopt() function in C to parse command line arguments

Last Updated : 10 Sep, 2018

The getopt() function is a builtin function in C and is used to parse command line arguments. Syntax:

getopt(int argc, char *const argv[], const char *optstring)

optstring is simply  a list of characters, 
each representing a single character option.

Return Value: The getopt() function returns different values:

If the option takes a value, that value is pointer to the external variable optarg.
'-1' if there are no more options to process.
'?' when there is an unrecognized option and it stores into external variable optopt.
If an option requires a value (such as -f in our example) and no value is given, getopt normally returns ?. By placing a colon as the first character of the options string, getopt returns: instead of ? when no value is given.

Generally, the getopt() function is called from inside of a loop's conditional statement. The loop terminates when the getopt() function returns -1. A switch statement is then executed with the value returned by getopt() function. A second loop is used to process the remaining extra arguments that cannot be processed in the first loop. Below program illustrate the getopt() function in C:

C

// Program to illustrate the getopt()
// function in C

#include <stdio.h> 
#include <unistd.h> 

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) 
{
    int opt;
    
    // put ':' in the starting of the
    // string so that program can 
    //distinguish between '?' and ':' 
    while((opt = getopt(argc, argv, “:if:lrx”)) != -1) 
    { 
        switch(opt) 
        { 
            case ‘i’: 
            case ‘l’: 
            case ‘r’: 
                printf(“option: %c\n”, opt); 
                break; 
            case ‘f’: 
                printf(“filename: %s\n”, optarg); 
                break; 
            case ‘:’: 
                printf(“option needs a value\n”); 
                break; 
            case ‘?’: 
                printf(“unknown option: %c\n”, optopt);
                break; 
        } 
    } 
    
    // optind is for the extra arguments
    // which are not parsed
    for(; optind < argc; optind++){     
        printf(“extra arguments: %s\n”, argv[optind]); 
    }
    
    return 0;
}

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getdate() and setdate() function in C with Examples

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