Perl GetOptions or die not working as intended - perl

I am writing a simple code which takes in an argument at command line and does some processing. I want the script to "die" if no option is passed.
Here is my script but it doesn't seem to "die". Any comments?
my $NETLIST;
GetOptions (
"netlist=s" => \$NETLIST
) or die ("ERROR: Netlist path must be specified.");

By default, Getopt::Long treats its options as, well ... optional. GetOptions is happy if you didn't provide netlist on the command line. You need to do a little extra work to check if the option was provided. Here is one way.
use warnings;
use strict;
use Getopt::Long;
my $NETLIST;
GetOptions (
"netlist=s" => \$NETLIST
) or die ("ERROR: unsupported option.");
die("ERROR: Netlist path must be specified.") unless defined $NETLIST;

Related

Issues with getopts in perl

I'm using Getopt::Std to process my command line args. My command line args are strings. I have issuewithgetopts()`, as it works only for single character based opts.
As seen below "srcdir" "targetdir" options are mandatory and script should error out if any one of them is missing. "block" is NOT a mandatory option.
I don't see %options has is being set with the code below, and all my options{key} are NULL. Had I replaced "srcdir=>s" and "targetdir=>t" then the below piece of code works. It doesn't work with "-srcdir" "-targetdir" options.
What's the best way to address the issue I have?
Use mode:
perl test.pl -srcdir foo1 -targetdir hello1
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Getopt::Std;
# declare the perl command line flags/opt we want to allow
my %options=();
my $optstring = 'srcdir:targetdir:block';
getopts( "$optstring", %options);
# test for the existence of the opt on the command line.
print "-srcdir $options{srcdir}\n" if defined $options{srcdir};
print "-targetdir $options{targetdir}\n" if defined $options{targetdir};
print "-blocks $options{block}\n" if defined $options{block};
# other things found on the command line
print "loop:\n" if ($#ARGV > 0);
foreach (#ARGV)
{
print "$_\n";
}
You really want to use Getopt::Long to handle words like srcdir:
use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use Getopt::Long;
$Data::Dumper::Sortkeys=1;
my %options;
GetOptions(\%options, qw(srcdir=s targetdir=s block));
print Dumper(\%options);
print Dumper(\#ARGV);
The reason your hash was empty was that you need to pass a reference to a hash, as shown in Getopt::Std:
getopts( "$optstring", \%options);
Also, since Std only handles single letters, it would interpret srcdir as 6 separate options: s, r, etc.

Read optional command-line arguments in Perl

I am new to Perl and I'm confused with its handling of optional arguments.
If I have a perl script that's invoked with something along the lines of:
plgrep [-f] < perl regular expression > < file/directory list >
How would I determine whether or not the -f operator is given or not on the command line?
All of the parameters passed to your program appear in the array #ARGV, so you can simply check whether any of the array elements contain the string -f
But if you are writing a program that uses many different options in combination, you may find it simpler to use the Getopt::Long module, which allows you to specify which parameters are optional, which take values, whether there are multiple synonynms for an option etc.
A call to GetOptions allows you to specify the parameters that your program expects, and will remove from #ARGV any that appear in the command line, saving indicators in simple Perl variables that reflect which were provided and what values, if any, they had
For instance, in the simple case that you describe, you could write your code like this
use strict;
use warnings 'all';
use feature 'say';
use Getopt::Long;
use Data::Dump;
say "\nBefore GetOptions";
dd \#ARGV;
GetOptions( f => \my $f_option);
say "\nAfter GetOptions";
dd $f_option;
dd \#ARGV;
output
Before GetOptions
["-f", "regexp", "file"]
After GetOptions
1
["regexp", "file"]
So you can see that before the call to GetOptions, #ARGV contains all of the data in the command line. But afterwards, the -f has been removed and variable $f_option is set to 1 to indicate that the option was specified
Use Getopt::Long. You could, of course, parse #ARGV by hand (which contains command line arguments), but there is no reason to do that with the existence of good modules for the job.
use warnings;
use strict;
use Getopt::Long;
# Set up defaults here if you wish
my ($flag, $integer, $float, $string);
usage(), exit if not GetOptions(
'f|flag!' => \$flag,
'integer:i' => \$integer,
'float:f' => \$float,
'string:s' => \$string
);
# The script now goes. Has the flag been supplied?
if (defined($flag)) { print "Got flag: $flag\n" } # it's 1
else {
# $flag variable is 'undef'
}
sub usage {
print "Usage: $0 [options]\n"; # -f or -flag, etc
}
The $flag can simply be tested for truth as well, if that is sufficient. To only check whether -f is there or not, need just: GetOptions('f' => \$flag); if ($flag) { };.
The module checks whether the invocation specifies arguments as they are expected. These need not be entered, they are "options." However, for an unexpected invocation a die or warn message is printed (and in the above code our usage message is also printed and the script exits). So for script.pl -a the script exits with messages (from module and sub).
Abbreviations of option names are OK, if unambiguous; script.pl -fl 0.5 exits with messages (-flag or -float?) while script.pl -i 5 is OK and $integer is set to 5. On the other hand, if an integer is not supplied after -i that is an error, since that option is defined to take one. Multiple names for options can be specified, like f|flag. Etc. There is far more.

How do I use getopt with the null file handle (<>) in Perl?

I have a script which does some basic awk like filtering using a while(<>) loop. I want the script to be able to display usage and version, but otherwise assume all arguments are files. How do I combine getopt with the <> operator?
Getopt plays nicely with #ARGV. Example
use strict; use warnings;
use feature 'say';
use Getopt::Long;
GetOptions 'foo=s' => \my $foo;
say "foo=$foo";
say "ARGV:";
say for #ARGV;
Then:
$ perl test.pl --foo fooval --bar
Unknown option: bar
foo=fooval
ARGV:
$ perl test.pl --foo fooval bar
foo=fooval
ARGV:
bar
$ perl test.pl --foo fooval -- --bar
foo=fooval
ARGV:
--bar
Summary:
Any items in #ARGV after the switches are simply left there.
This works as expected for normal filenames (that don't start with a hyphen-minus).
You can always use a -- to abort parsing of switches.
This works as expected for me.
use warnings;
use strict;
use Getopt::Long qw(GetOptions);
my %opt;
GetOptions(\%opt, qw(help)) or die;
die 'usage' if $opt{help};
while (<>) {
print;
}
As others have mentioned, Getopt::Long is the prefered module. It has been around since Perl 3.x.
There's a lot of options, and it can take a while to get use to the syntax, but it does exactly what you want:
use strict;
use warnings;
use Getopt::Long;
use feature qw(say);
use Pod::Usage;
my ( $version, $help ); #Strict, we have to predeclare these:
GetOptions(
'help' => \$help,
'version' => \$version,
) or pod2usage ( -message => "Invalid options" );
That's all there is to it. When the Getoptions subroutine runs, it will parse your command line (the #ARGV array) for anything that starts with a - or --. It will process those, and when it comes to either a double dash by itself, or an option not starting with a dash, it will assume those are files and it's done processing. At that point, all of the option strings (and their parameters) have been shifted out of the #ARGSV array, and you're left with your files:
if ( $help ) {
pod2usage;
}
if ( $version ) {
say "Version 1.23.3";
exit;
}
while ( my $file = <>) {
...
}
Getopts::Long is part of the standard Perl installation, so it should always be available to you.
I know many people are wary of using these modules because they think they're not standard Perl, but they are just as much a part of Perl as commands like print and chomp. Perl comes with over 500 of them and they're yours to use.

In perl passing a parameter to a script using a required command

I have two file tmp.pl and tmp2.pl. I want to call tmp2.pl with a require command but also send a parameter. Is there a better way of doing this?
tmp.pl
require "tmp2.pl" "passed parameter";
tmp2.pl
print #_;
As far as I know, require cannot be used to send a parameter. But that's a good thing, I think, because I cannot think of a reason why you should want to. Looks to me that your design is wrong.
tmp2.pl should be either:
a independent perl program, which you should run with system or qx()
a module, with optional exported tags etc.
a package which defines a class
but that's just my idea....
There's probably a better way to accomplish whatever it is you're trying to do, but you could achieve your current sub goal with something like
{
local #_ = ("passed parameter");
require "tmp2.pl";
}
I might consider this idiom in a place where I wanted to run a perl script from within a perl script. That is, I could say
{
local #ARGV = ("foo","bar");
require "my_script.pl";
}
instead of
system("perl","my_script.pl","foo","bar");
(There are plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle differences between these two calls, so a lot depends on what "features" of these calls you need)
Yes, I think this should work. Use "require" to include the script. After that you can pass the parameter by calling the sub function. The modified script can be
require "tmp2.pl" ;
subfunc(parameter);
print #_;
Supposing that you want to execute other program and capture its output I'm partial to using the IPC::Run module.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use IPC::Run qw( run );
run( [ './tmp2.pl', #ARGV ], \'', \my $out, \my $err );
print "out: $out\n";
print "err: $err\n";

How can I allow undefined options when parsing args with Getopt

If I have a command line like:
my_script.pl -foo -WHATEVER
My script knows about --foo, and I want Getopt to set variable $opt_foo, but I don't know anything about -WHATEVER. How can I tell Getopt to parse out the options that I've told it about, and then get the rest of the arguments in a string variable or a list?
An example:
use strict;
use warnings;
use Getopt::Long;
my $foo;
GetOptions('foo' => \$foo);
print 'remaining options: ', #ARGV;
Then, issuing
perl getopttest.pl -foo -WHATEVER
gives
Unknown option: whatever
remaining options:
You need to configure "pass_through" option via Getopt::Long::Configure("pass_through");
Then it support actual options (e.g. stuff starting with "-" and without the special "--" delimiter to signify the end of "real" options).
Here's perldoc quote:
pass_through (default: disabled)
Options that are unknown, ambiguous or supplied with an invalid option value are passed through in #ARGV instead of being flagged as errors. This makes it possible to write wrapper scripts that process only part of the user supplied command line arguments, and pass the remaining options to some other program.
Here's an example
$ cat my_script.pl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8 -w
use Getopt::Long;
Getopt::Long::Configure("pass_through");
use Data::Dumper;
my %args;
GetOptions(\%args, "foo") or die "GetOption returned 0\n";
print Data::Dumper->Dump([\#ARGV],["ARGV"]);
$ ./my_script.pl -foo -WHATEVER
$ARGV = [
'-WHATEVER'
];
Aren't the remaining (unparsed) values simply left behind in #ARGV? If your extra content starts with dashes, you will need to indicate the end of the options list with a --:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Getopt::Long;
use Data::Dumper;
my $foo;
my $result = GetOptions ("foo" => \$foo);
print Dumper([ $foo, \#ARGV ]);
Then calling:
my_script.pl --foo -- --WHATEVER
gives:
$VAR1 = [
1,
[
'--WHATEVER'
]
];
PS. In MooseX::Getopt, the "remaining" options from the command line are put into the extra_argv attribute as an arrayref -- so I'd recommend converting!
I think the answer here, sadly though, is "no, there isn't a way to do it exactly like you ask, using Getopt::Long, without parsing #ARGV on your own." Ether has a decent workaround, though. It's a feature as far as most people are concerned that any option-like argument is captured as an error. Normally, you can do
GetOptions('foo' => \$foo)
or die "Whups, got options we don't recognize!";
to capture/prevent odd options from being passed, and then you can correct the user on usage. Alternatively, you can simply pass through and ignore them.