I have a number of cases where I need to pass free-form (i.e. containing white space and symbols as well as alphabetical symbols) strings as parameters to a function in fish shell.
Here's an example where I try to use getopts (to no avail):
function create_a_note --description 'create a new text note'
set -l title ''
set -l tags ''
getopts $argv | while read -l key value
switch $key
case t title
set title $value
case g tags
set tags $value
end
end
if test -z $title
error "title must be set (use the -t option)" >&2
return 1
end
# do something interesting with the title and tags
end
I invoke it like this:
create_a_note -t 'my very interesting note' -g '@blah @rhubarb'
Whenever I use this kind of approach, the variables $title and $tags get the first word of the strings (i.e. $title == 'my' and $tags == '@blah') rather than the whole string. I get why this is happening, where the string is converted to a list and the first element of the list is returned.
My question is - is there a way around this within fish shell? I don't want to just pass in $argv and parse it myself unless there is no other option.
Use of getopts is optional, if you'll pardon the pun.
My suggestion is to stop using getopts, an interface which I can never get right, and instead use fish's built-in argument parsing tool, argparse.
function create_a_note --description 'create a new text note'
set -l title ''
set -l tags ''
argparse 't/=+' 'g/=+' -- $argv
if test -z "$_flag_t"
echo "title must be set (use the -t option)" >&2
return 1
end
echo $_flag_t; echo $_flag_g
end
In particular, argparse 't/=+' 'g/=+' means "a -t option which requires an argument, and a -g option which requires an argument". These arguments are stored in $_flag_t and $_flag_g respectively. There's more information in the argparse manual.