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

So here it is my solution. I wanted to be able to handle boolean flags without hyphen, with one hyphen, and with two hyphen as well as parameter/value assignment with one and two hyphens.

# Handle multiple types of arguments and prints some variables
#
# Boolean flags
# 1) No hyphen
#    create   Assigns `true` to the variable `CREATE`.
#             Default is `CREATE_DEFAULT`.
#    delete   Assigns true to the variable `DELETE`.
#             Default is `DELETE_DEFAULT`.
# 2) One hyphen
#      a      Assigns `true` to a. Default is `false`.
#      b      Assigns `true` to b. Default is `false`.
# 3) Two hyphens
#    cats     Assigns `true` to `cats`. By default is not set.
#    dogs     Assigns `true` to `cats`. By default is not set.
#
# Parameter - Value
# 1) One hyphen
#      c      Assign any value you want
#      d      Assign any value you want
#
# 2) Two hyphens
#   ... Anything really, whatever two-hyphen argument is given that is not
#       defined as flag, will be defined with the next argument after it.
#
# Example:
# ./parser_example.sh delete -a -c VA_1 --cats --dir /path/to/dir
parser() {
    # Define arguments with one hyphen that are boolean flags
    HYPHEN_FLAGS="a b"
    # Define arguments with two hyphens that are boolean flags
    DHYPHEN_FLAGS="cats dogs"

    # Iterate over all the arguments
    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
        # Handle the arguments with no hyphen
        if [[ $1 != "-"* ]]; then
            echo "Argument with no hyphen!"
            echo $1
            # Assign true to argument $1
            declare $1=true
            # Shift arguments by one to the left
            shift
        # Handle the arguments with one hyphen
        elif [[ $1 == "-"[A-Za-z0-9]* ]]; then
            # Handle the flags
            if [[ $HYPHEN_FLAGS == *"${1/-/}"* ]]; then
                echo "Argument with one hyphen flag!"
                echo $1
                # Remove the hyphen from $1
                local param="${1/-/}"
                # Assign true to $param
                declare $param=true
                # Shift by one
                shift
            # Handle the parameter-value cases
            else
                echo "Argument with one hyphen value!"
                echo $1 $2
                # Remove the hyphen from $1
                local param="${1/-/}"
                # Assign argument $2 to $param
                declare $param="$2"
                # Shift by two
                shift 2
            fi
        # Handle the arguments with two hyphens
        elif [[ $1 == "--"[A-Za-z0-9]* ]]; then
            # NOTE: For double hyphen I am using `declare -g $param`.
            #   This is the case because I am assuming that's going to be
            #   the final name of the variable
            echo "Argument with two hypens!"
            # Handle the flags
            if [[ $DHYPHEN_FLAGS == *"${1/--/}"* ]]; then
                echo $1 true
                # Remove the hyphens from $1
                local param="${1/--/}"
                # Assign argument $2 to $param
                declare -g $param=true
                # Shift by two
                shift
            # Handle the parameter-value cases
            else
                echo $1 $2
                # Remove the hyphens from $1
                local param="${1/--/}"
                # Assign argument $2 to $param
                declare -g $param="$2"
                # Shift by two
                shift 2
            fi
        fi

    done
    # Default value for arguments with no hypheb
    CREATE=${create:-'CREATE_DEFAULT'}
    DELETE=${delete:-'DELETE_DEFAULT'}
    # Default value for arguments with one hypen flag
    VAR1=${a:-false}
    VAR2=${b:-false}
    # Default value for arguments with value
    # NOTE1: This is just for illustration in one line. We can well create
    #   another function to handle this. Here I am handling the cases where
    #   we have a full named argument and a contraction of it.
    #   For example `--arg1` can be also set with `-c`.
    # NOTE2: What we are doing here is to check if $arg is defined. If not,
    #   check if $c was defined. If not, assign the default value "VD_"
    VAR3=$(if [[ $arg1 ]]; then echo $arg1; else echo ${c:-"VD_1"}; fi)
    VAR4=$(if [[ $arg2 ]]; then echo $arg2; else echo ${d:-"VD_2"}; fi)
}


# Pass all the arguments given to the script to the parser function
parser "$@"


echo $CREATE $DELETE $VAR1 $VAR2 $VAR3 $VAR4 $cats $dir

Some references

• The main procedure was found here.
• More about passing all the arguments to a function here.
• More info regarding default values here.
• More info about declare do $ bash -c "help declare".
• More info about shift do $ bash -c "help shift".