busybox getopt ignores 1st positional paramater

[s243a]

Some code:

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  declare -a options
  while read option; do
    options+=( "$option" )
  done < <(getopt --long no-strip::,no-self:: -- "$@")
  declare -a self
  eval set -- "${options[@]}"

**Note the loop isn't strictly necessary. The following is likely also okay:

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  declare -a options
  options="$(getopt --long no-strip::,no-self:: -- "$@")"
  declare -a self
  eval set -- "${options[@]}"

but the first code lets me see better what getopt is actually returning.

Some mysterious output:

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+++ getopt --long no-strip::,no-self:: -- libc6 /tmp/pkg/root/pkg_aliases
++ options+=("$option")
++ read option
++ declare -a self
++ eval set -- '-- '\''/tmp/pkg/root/pkg_aliases'\'''

The mystery here is what happened to the positional parameter libc6.

Trying to work this issue out I created some test code that I typed direectly into a terminal:

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# unset options
# while read option; do options+=($option); done < <(getopt -s bash --long no-strip::,no-self:: -- '' 'libc6' '/tmp/pkg/root/pkg_aliases' 'libc7')
# bla="${options[@]}"
# echo $bla
-- 'libc6' '/tmp/pkg/root/pkg_aliases' 'libc7'

Adding a dummy argument (i.e. '' ) after the double dash seems to fix the issue but I'm not sure if this would be compatible with a full version of getopt. I'm wondering if I"m dealing with some wierd busybox quirk here. The issue doesn't manifest if I only have one positional parameter. I wonder if the quirk here is the way that busybox treats the double dash (i.e. '--')

[Burunduk]

You are not the only one asking this question:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... t-argument

Adding a dummy argument (i.e. '' ) after the double dash seems to fix the issue but I'm not sure if this would be compatible with a full version of getopt.

Yes.

I'm wondering if I"m dealing with some wierd busybox quirk here.

No, util-linux getopt behaves the same way.

This is not unusual. sed treats its first non-option argument as a program not as a file name. getopt uses it as a short options string that may be empty. Another place for that empty string is after the -o option:

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busybox getopt -s bash --long no-strip::,no-self:: -o '' -- 'libc6' '/tmp/pkg/root/pkg_aliases' 'libc7'

BTW, this is what the busybox source says about getopt:

The getopt utility is used to break up (parse) options in command
lines to make it easy to write complex shell scripts that also check
for legal (and illegal) options. If you want to write horribly
complex shell scripts, or use some horribly complex shell script
written by others, this utility may be for you. Most people will
wisely leave this disabled.