perl Getopt::Long::GetOptions usage

Question

I wanted to use Getopt::Long::GetOptions for getting command line options to the script.

I have a requirement like this:

perl script.pl -c <name1> -c <name2> -m <name3> argument

Here we have option flags -c and -mm which are optional, and argument is mandatory.

Can anyone point out the correct usage for GetOptions?

Answer 1

From the Getopt::Long documentation:

GetOptions does not return a false result when an option is not supplied

That's why they're called 'options'.

In other words, if you are expecting a mandatory parameter, you need to explicitly check for it outside of the GetOptions call.

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If argument is meant to be part of @ARGV and not the options, use -- to signal the end of options. In the example below, the script would access argument via $ARGV[0]:

perl script.pl -c <name1> -c <name2> -m <name3> -- argument