Retrieving multiple arguments for a single option using getopts in Bash

by

You can use the same option multiple times and add all values to an array.

For the very specific original question here, Ryan’s mkdir -p solution is obviously the best.

However, for the more general question of getting multiple values from the same option with getopts, here it is:

#!/bin/bash

while getopts "m:" opt; do
    case $opt in
        m) multi+=("$OPTARG");;
        #...
    esac
done
shift $((OPTIND -1))

echo "The first value of the array 'multi' is '$multi'"
echo "The whole list of values is '${multi[@]}'"

echo "Or:"

for val in "${multi[@]}"; do
    echo " - $val"
done

The output would be:

$ /tmp/t
The first value of the array 'multi' is ''
The whole list of values is ''
Or:

$ /tmp/t -m "one arg with spaces"
The first value of the array 'multi' is 'one arg with spaces'
The whole list of values is 'one arg with spaces'
Or:
 - one arg with spaces

$ /tmp/t -m one -m "second argument" -m three
The first value of the array 'multi' is 'one'
The whole list of values is 'one second argument three'
Or:
 - one
 - second argument
 - three

More Related Contents:

  1. Using getopts to process long and short command line options
  2. How can I use long options with the Bash getopts builtin?
  3. How do I parse command line arguments in Bash?
  4. An example of how to use getopts in bash
  5. Accessing bash command line args $@ vs $*
  6. Bash command line and input limit
  7. Propagate all arguments in a bash shell script
  8. Check number of arguments passed to a Bash script
  9. What is the difference between “$@” and “$*” in Bash? [duplicate]
  10. How to access command line arguments of the caller inside a function?
  11. Using getopts inside a Bash function
  12. Why does getopts only work the first time?
  13. How to pass arguments to Shell Script through docker run
  14. bash getopts with multiple and mandatory options
  15. Optional option argument with getopts
  16. How to substitute quoted, multi-word strings as arguments?
  17. How to get the nth positional argument in bash?
  18. How to change a command line argument in Bash?
  19. Why start a shell command with a backslash?
  20. How to delete files older than X hours
  21. Why is this bash prompt acting strangely/disappearing, and how do I fix it (OS X)?
  22. Bash: Copy named files recursively, preserving folder structure
  23. Read a variable in bash with a default value
  24. What does “export” do in shell programming? [duplicate]
  25. What is the most elegant way to remove a path from the $PATH variable in Bash?
  26. How to match a single quote in sed
  27. How do I get both STDOUT and STDERR to go to the terminal and a log file?
  28. -bash: __git_ps1: command not found
  29. How to append a string at end of a specific line in a file in bash [duplicate]
  30. docker entrypoint running bash script gets “permission denied”

Leave a Comment