How to pass parameters transparently into a sub script

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

I am trying to write a script like this:

#!/bin/ksh
#script name: msgflow

#The awk commands for Solaris and Linux are incompatible
if [[ $(uname) == "SunOS" ]]
then
msgflow-solaris $*
elif [[ $(uname) == "Linux" ]]
then
msgflow-linux $*
fi

This script is shared by a file system which is visible to both a Linux system and a Solaris system. The systax of msgflow-linux is

msgflow-linux [-k keyword ] filename

Now in the Linux system if I run

msgflow -k "Call-ID: 41235036591@10.170.10.109" my.log

it complains

Using keyword Call-ID:. File "41235036591@10.170.10.109" does NOT exist, aborted!

And I updated the script msgflow to

if [[ $(uname) == "SunOS" ]]
then
msgflow-solaris "$"
elif [[ $(uname) == "Linux" ]]
then
msgflow-linux "$"
fi

(added double quotes to $*)

Then it complains

Using keyword Call-ID: 41235036591@10.170.10.109 my.log. File "" does NOT exist, aborted!

Apparently in both cases the "-k keyword" option and "my.log" parameter were not correctly passed to the subscript msgflow-linux.

Can anyone please advice whether there is an easy way to resolve this?

My initial thoughts are, with the $*, any option and parameter can be transparently passed to the sub script.

Any help will be appreciated.

2

man getopt

3

Can you please make it clearer?

4

You problem is that the argument parsing is not happening properly. The getopt / getopts command can be used to accept arguments in typical unix style and they will parse arguments corretly & flexibly.

Example