How to get arguments with flags in Bash

Question

I know that I can easily get positioned parameters like this in bash:

$0 or $1

I want to be able to use flag options like this to s

Answer 1

I like Robert McMahan's answer the best here as it seems the easiest to make into sharable include files for any of your scripts to use. But it seems to have a flaw with the line if [[ -n ${variables[$argument_label]} ]] throwing the message, "variables: bad array subscript". I don't have the rep to comment, and I doubt this is the proper 'fix,' but wrapping that if in if [[ -n $argument_label ]] ; then cleans it up.

Here's the code I ended up with, if you know a better way please add a comment to Robert's answer.

Include File "flags-declares.sh"

# declaring a couple of associative arrays
declare -A arguments=();
declare -A variables=();

# declaring an index integer
declare -i index=1;

Include File "flags-arguments.sh"

# $@ here represents all arguments passed in
for i in "$@"
do
  arguments[$index]=$i;
  prev_index="$(expr $index - 1)";

  # this if block does something akin to "where $i contains ="
  # "%=*" here strips out everything from the = to the end of the argument leaving only the label
  if [[ $i == *"="* ]]
    then argument_label=${i%=*}
    else argument_label=${arguments[$prev_index]}
  fi

  if [[ -n $argument_label ]] ; then
    # this if block only evaluates to true if the argument label exists in the variables array
    if [[ -n ${variables[$argument_label]} ]] ; then
      # dynamically creating variables names using declare
      # "#$argument_label=" here strips out the label leaving only the value
      if [[ $i == *"="* ]]
        then declare ${variables[$argument_label]}=${i#$argument_label=} 
        else declare ${variables[$argument_label]}=${arguments[$index]}
      fi
    fi
  fi

  index=index+1;
done;

Your "script.sh"

. bin/includes/flags-declares.sh

# any variables you want to use here
# on the left left side is argument label or key (entered at the command line along with it's value) 
# on the right side is the variable name the value of these arguments should be mapped to.
# (the examples above show how these are being passed into this script)
variables["-gu"]="git_user";
variables["--git-user"]="git_user";
variables["-gb"]="git_branch";
variables["--git-branch"]="git_branch";
variables["-dbr"]="db_fqdn";
variables["--db-redirect"]="db_fqdn";
variables["-e"]="environment";
variables["--environment"]="environment";

. bin/includes/flags-arguments.sh

# then you could simply use the variables like so:
echo "$git_user";
echo "$git_branch";
echo "$db_fqdn";
echo "$environment";