Getopt::Long question

Cody Pendant has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm using Getopt::Long, like this:

my($dir, $year, $start, $delay);

GetOptions (
    'dir=s'   => \$dir,
    'year=i'  => \$year,
    'start:i' => \$start,
    'delay:i' => \$delay
    );
[download]

And when I call my script like this:

scriptname --dir foo --year 2007 --delay 30

everything is fine.

When I call it like this, with the options in a different order, it dies:

scriptname --dir foo --delay 30 --year 2007 
Option year requires an argument
[download]

But if I add an equals sign, it's OK:

scriptname --dir foo --delay 30 --year=2007

I can't figure out what's going on by referring to the module's documentation on CPAN. TIA.

Nobody says perl looks like line-noise any more
kids today don't know what line-noise IS ...

Comment on Getopt::Long question Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Getopt::Long question by Tanktalus (Canon) on Mar 03, 2009 at 00:02 UTC
You may want to look at your version of Getopt::Long. I apparently have 2.35 installed, and do not have the problem you're mentioning.	[reply]
Re: Getopt::Long question by graff (Chancellor) on Mar 03, 2009 at 03:55 UTC
When you used this ordering of args on your command line: `scriptname --dir foo --year 2007 --delay 30` [download] did you confirm that the "$delay" variable actually got the value "30"? I'm guessing it might not have, because there might be something else happening to @ARGV before you make the call to GetOptions() -- like maybe something pops off the last arg?	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Getopt::Long question by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Mar 03, 2009 at 05:22 UTC
You're right! I see what's gone wrong now, and I feel appropriately stupid. It wasn't actually "scriptname args" that I was running, it was "scriptalias args" where scriptalias is a doskey alias to the script, which didn't pass on all the args. Mea Culpa. Nobody says perl looks like line-noise any more kids today don't know what line-noise IS ...	[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom