12.22.2 getopt_long_only

Gnulib module: getopt-gnu

Portability problems fixed by Gnulib:

• The function getopt_long_only does not obey the combination of ‘+’ and ‘:’ flags in the options string on some platforms: glibc 2.11.
• The use of ‘W;’ in the optstring argument to does not always allow -W foo to behave synonymously with --foo: glibc 2.11.
• The function getopt_long_only does not support the ‘+’ flag in the options string on some platforms: Mac OS X 10.5, AIX 5.2, OSF/1 5.1, Solaris 10.
• The value of optind after a missing required argument is wrong on some platforms: Mac OS X 10.5.
• The function getopt_long_only does not obey the ‘-’ flag in the options string when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set on some platforms: Cygwin 1.7.0.
• Some implementations fail to reset state, including re-checking POSIXLY_CORRECT, when optind is set to ‘0’: NetBSD, Cygwin 1.7.0.
• The function getopt_long_only does not support options with optional arguments on some platforms: Mac OS X 10.5, OpenBSD 4.0, AIX 5.2, Solaris 11 2010-11, Cygwin 1.5.x.
• This function is missing on some platforms: Mac OS X 10.3, FreeBSD 5.2.1, NetBSD 5.0, Minix 3.1.8, AIX 5.1, HP-UX 11, IRIX 6.5, OSF/1 5.1, mingw, MSVC 9, Interix 3.5.
• This function crashes if the option string includes W; but there are no long options, on some platforms: glibc 2.14.

Portability problems not fixed by Gnulib:

• Some implementations return success instead of reporting an ambiguity if user’s option is a prefix of two long options with the same outcome: FreeBSD.
• The GNU Coding Standards discourage the use of getopt_long_only in new programs.