Trying to implement getopt in BATCH, with flagged arguments first and other arguments last

Question

I'm trying to handle my script's command line arguments more elegantly. I really like the way getopt handles arguments in C, but at this point in my script it's not worth rewriting it in a new language. I came across this thread: https://stackoverflow.com/a/3661082, that included this method that I really liked:

:GETOPTS
if /I "%1" == "-h" goto Help
if /I "%1" == "-b" set BASE=%2 & shift
if /I "%1" == "-s" set SQL=%2 & shift
shift
if not "%1" == "" goto GETOPTS

Credit to @tivnet and @Kris

I also found this answer in another thread that also used mandatory parameters, but in their scenario they had the mandatory arguments first, whereas I would like to use them at the end.

@ECHO OFF

SET man1=%1
SET man2=%2
SHIFT & SHIFT

:loop
IF NOT "%1"=="" (
    IF "%1"=="-username" (
    SET user=%2
    SHIFT
)
IF "%1"=="-otheroption" (
    SET other=%2
    SHIFT
)
SHIFT
GOTO :loop
)

Credit to @ewall

In my implementation of argument handling, I have an issue of the two mandatory arguments being empty after the optional, named arguments. An example of how the arguments should be entered:

script.cmd [-F file-type] [-D delete-old] SOURCE DEST

@ECHO OFF

:GETOPTS
if /I "%1"=="-h" GOTO HELP
if /I "%1"=="-F" set fileType=%2 & SHIFT
if /I "%1"=="-D" set deleteOld=%2 & SHIFT
SHIFT
if not "%1"=="" GOTO GETOPTS
SHIFT & SHIFT

set source=%1
set dest=%2

When I try to echo %source% and %dest%, I get empty responses. The other variables I set work as expected. Where am I going wrong?

I just found this solution on SuperUser, so I'm trying to use some of the methodologies that they use to detect if an argument is an option or a parameter. If someone can combine them better than I, please do.

it is really simple. Decide on which switches can be used together, then which not, then place each of them in the %n position and test whether they are a switch or a parameter. — Gerhard, Jan 25 '18 at 14:28

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 25 '18 at 16:17

I was able to get something working after a lot of trial and error. Some of the lessons I learned doing this was that flags without any arguments do not need their own SHIFT.

@ECHO OFF

:GETOPT
if /I "%1"=="-h" goto HELP
if /I "%1"=="--help" goto HELP
if /I "%1"=="-v" goto VERSION
if /I "%1"=="--version" goto VERSION
if /I "%1"=="-F" set fileType=%2 & SHIFT
if /I "%1"=="-D" set deleteOld=1
SHIFT
set source=%1
set dest=%2
if not "%3"=="" goto GETOPT
goto EOF

Trying to implement getopt in BATCH, with flagged arguments first and other arguments last

1 Answers1