How can I make bash deal with long param using "getopt" command in mac?

Question

I want to make my bash script deal with long parameters. I found getopt, but it isn't supported in OS X. Can anyone tell me why getopt was implemented by BSD, but not GNU? I tried building getopt in GNU C lib, but it failed for my poor skills with Linux.

Did anyone do this work?

Answer 1

There is a brew bottle for getopt.

Just run brew install gnu-getopt.

You can either specify the path for it like /usr/local/Cellar/gnu-getopt/1.1.6/bin/getopt

Or use brew link --force gnu-getopt so it will be linked in /usr/local/bin/

Just be aware that forcing linking might be corrupting your system (as it replaces the system getopt by the gnu one).

See also other answer suggesting to define FLAGS_GETOPT_CMD.

Answer 2

I recommend using Homebrew to install gnu-getopt and then adding $FLAGS_GETOPT_CMD to your ~/.bash_profile file to specify the cmd path for getopt, pointing at the homebrew location, like so:

brew install gnu-getopt 

Then follow directions from brew to add to your local path:

sudo echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/gnu-getopt/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile 

Then you can add FLAGS_GETOPT_CMD:

sudo echo 'export FLAGS_GETOPT_CMD="$(brew --prefix gnu-getopt)/bin/getopt"' >> ~/.bash_profile 

Open a new terminal, or run . ~/.bash_profile in existing terminal to load changes

Run echo $FLAGS_GETOPT_CMD to confirm it was actually set in your console