How to handle shell getopts with parameter containing blank spaces

Question

I'm looking for a way to handle arguments containing blank spaces that has to be parsed by shell getopts command.

while getopts ":a:i:o:e:v:u:" arg
  do
  echo "ARG is: $arg" >> /tmp/submit.log
  case "$arg" in
  a) arg1="$OPTARG" ;;
  i) arg2="$OPTARG" ;;
  o) arg3="$OPTARG" ;;
  ...
  u) argn="$OPTARG" ;;
  -) break ;;
  \?) ;;
  *) echo "unhandled option $arg" >> /tmp/submit.log ;;
  ?) echo $usage_string
     exit 1 ;;
  esac
done

Now if -u has argument like "STRING WITH WHITE SPACE" than just the first part of the string is triggered and the while loop doesn't go to the end.

many thanks.

Answer 1

a trap for young players (ie me!)

beware a line like this:

main $@

what you really need is:

main "$@"

otherwise getopts will mince up your options into little pieces

http://www.unix.com/shell-programming-scripting/70630-getopts-list-argument.html