Re: Which shell and how to get started handling arguments

On 2024-04-15, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

In article <slrnv1qib9.1f89.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>,
Christian Weisgerber  <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:

On 2024-04-15, Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> wrote:
>

As others have said, write your script to the POSIX shell language
standards.

>

Then, there is getopts (which is /not/ a universally-supported extension
to the shell language),

>
It is part of POSIX sh.

>
It would be useful to know exactly *why* OP wants to stay "as portable as
possible".  Yes, I know it is against the creed here to question such
things, but it needs to be done, nevertheless.

OP probably doesn't have a good feeling for the shell script portability
landscape, and just wants their scripts to work on multiple systems,
with whatever shell is installed by default?

Wild-assed guess; but he did mention multiple systems.

I say this as someone who does occasionally program in dash (Debian's
version of the "POSIX shell" paradigm), just to see and to remind myself
about how limited it is.  But I would urge OP to think long and hard about
whether or not it matters.  I find that when I do program in dash, I rather
quickly run into the limitations and end up regretting the choice.

Whereas if you program in Bash, it's like you're mounted on a steed that
is galloping over vast, open plains of software engineering techniques ...

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