Getopts or Case for options?

[tschettervictor]

@bmac2 @yaazkal @JRGTH

I have read many programs that use "while getopts" for their option handling. I notice also that bastille uses mostly "case" for its options.

With the former, we are able to bunch options together like "-fsm" wile with the latter this is not possible unless we add more case blocks.

With the latter, we have the ability to add "long options" like "--force" in addition to "-f".

I'd like to know if we should stay with "case" or perhaps consider integrating "getopt" as the option handler.

Thanks.

[bmac2]

I vote to stay with CASE as we are already with case all over the place. Changing now could make it confusing. I like consistency

[tschettervictor]

That's where I'm leaning towards. I like getopts for what it allows, but it's not a necessity.

[JRGTH]

I also vote to stay with case/esac too, while it may require more bits it is way more flexible, better error handling, portable etc, also be aware that getopts(built-in shell command) only handles short options unlike getopt(program), between I personally use case/esac for full POSIX-compliant as most of the already built-in FreeBSD shell commands.

Regards!

[tschettervictor]

Cool.

Here is a snippet I built to work for things like "-fsr" or any number of arts with case.

# Handle options.
BRIDGE_VNET_JAIL=0
FORCE=0
STATIC_MAC=0
START=0
VNET_JAIL=0
while [ "$#" -gt 0 ]; do
    case "${1}" in
        -h|--help|help)
            usage
            ;;
        -b|-B|--bridge)
            BRIDGE_VNET_JAIL=1
            shift
            ;;
        -f|--force)
            FORCE=1
            shift
            ;;
        -m|-M|--static-mac)
            STATIC_MAC=1
            shift
            ;;
        -s|--start)
            START=1
            shift
            ;;
        -v|-V|--vnet)
            VNET_JAIL=1
            shift
            ;;
        -*)
            for _o in $(echo ${1} | sed 's/-//g' | fold -w1); do
                case ${_o} in
                    b|B) BRIDGE_VNET_JAIL=1 ;;
                    f) FORCE=1 ;;
                    m|M) STATIC_MAC=1 ;;
                    s) START=1 ;;
                    v|V) VNET_JAIL=1 ;;
                    *) error_exit "Unknown Option: \"${1}\"" ;; 
                esac
            done
            shift
            ;;
        *)
            break
            ;;
    esac
done

[JRGTH]

The above snippet seems to handle short options well and looks consistent with the existing code, just a little cosmetic change I would make is to change the variable _o for someting like _opt to keep the code as readable as possible for future contributors ease, between nice work here.

Regards!

[tschettervictor]

Will do. I've update PR #783 with this now.