How can I allow undefined options when parsing args with Getopt

Question

If I have a command line like:

my_script.pl -foo -WHATEVER

My script knows about --foo, and I want Getopt to set variable

Answer 1

You need to configure "pass_through" option via Getopt::Long::Configure("pass_through");

Then it support actual options (e.g. stuff starting with "-" and without the special "--" delimiter to signify the end of "real" options).

Here's perldoc quote:

• pass_through (default: disabled)

  Options that are unknown, ambiguous or supplied with an invalid option value are passed through in @ARGV instead of being flagged as errors. This makes it possible to write wrapper scripts that process only part of the user supplied command line arguments, and pass the remaining options to some other program.

Here's an example

$ cat my_script.pl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8 -w

use Getopt::Long;
Getopt::Long::Configure("pass_through");
use Data::Dumper;
my %args;
GetOptions(\%args, "foo") or die "GetOption returned 0\n";
print Data::Dumper->Dump([\@ARGV],["ARGV"]);

$ ./my_script.pl -foo -WHATEVER          
$ARGV = [
          '-WHATEVER'
        ];