GETSUBOPT(3) MachTen Programmer’s Manual GETSUBOPT(3)

NAME
getsubopt - get sub options from an argument

SYNOPSIS
#include <stdlib.h>

extern char *suboptarg

int
getsubopt(char **optionp, char * const *tokens, char **valuep)

DESCRIPTION
The getsubopt() function parses a string containing tokens delimited by
one or more tab, space or comma (‘,’) characters. It is intended for use
in parsing groups of option arguments provided as part of a utility com-
mand line.

The argument optionp is a pointer to a pointer to the string. The argu-
ment tokens is a pointer to a NULL-terminated array of pointers to
strings.

The getsubopt() function returns the zero-based offset of the pointer in
the tokens array referencing a string which matches the first token in
the string, or, -1 if the string contains no tokens or tokens does not
contain a matching string.

If the token is of the form ‘‘name=value’’, the location referenced by
valuep will be set to point to the start of the ‘‘value’’ portion of the
token.

On return from getsubopt(), optionp will be set to point to the start of
the next token in the string, or the null at the end of the string if no
more tokens are present. The external variable suboptarg will be set to
point to the start of the current token, or NULL if no tokens were pre-
sent. The argument valuep will be set to point to the ‘‘value’’ portion
of the token, or NULL if no ‘‘value’’ portion was present.

EXAMPLE
char *tokens[] = {
#define ONE 0
"one",
#define TWO 1
"two",
NULL
};

...

extern char *optarg, *suboptarg;
char *options, *value;

while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "ab:")) != -1) {
switch(ch) {
case ’a’:
/* process ‘‘a’’ option */
break;
case ’b’:
options = optarg;
while (*options) {
switch(getsubopt(&options, tokens, &value)) {
case ONE:
/* process ‘‘one’’ sub option */
break;
case TWO:
/* process ‘‘two’’ sub option */
if (!value)
error("no value for two");
i = atoi(value);
break;
case -1:
if (suboptarg)
error("illegal sub option %s",
suboptarg);
else
error("missing sub option");
break;
}
break;
}

SEE ALSO
getopt(3), strsep(3)

HISTORY
The getsubopt() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.

4.4BSD June 9, 1993 2