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From: seebs AT plethora DOT net (Peter Seebach)
Reply-To: seebs AT plethora DOT net (Peter Seebach)
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Question about ash and getopts
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 28 Dec 2003 23:57:15 PST." <3FEFDE5B.3000801@helixdigital.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 02:07:23 -0600

In message <3FEFDE5B DOT 3000801 AT helixdigital DOT com>, Dario Alcocer writes:
>Peter Seebach wrote:
>
>>I know this is a pseudo-FAQ, but I haven't been able to find a clear enough
>>answer in the archives.
>>
>>1.  Is it not the case that POSIX provides a specification for the getopts
>>builtin?
>>2.  Doesn't ash, as originally written, implement getopts?
>>
>>I'm trying to figure out why this feature was removed, and I've never gotten
>>an answer that made much sense.  Every other POSIX-like system I can think
>>of supports getopts in /bin/sh.  Why is Cygwin different?
>>  
>>
>Use the "set -- `getopt`" idiom instead:
>
>    http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-05/msg01114.html

Yes, but *why*?  Why not use the thing that's in the POSIX shell spec,
which works everywhere else?

I have a few dozen scripts which have worked on every Unix system I've seen
since the mid-90s, and the feature appears to date back to SVR3 (1986).

I could understand not implementing it; what I can't understand is expending
extra effort to remove it.

-s

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