README
1Free Getopt
2
3******************************************************************************
4Please read the file LICENSE for the terms of use and distribution of this
5software.
6******************************************************************************
7
8"getopt" is a library that allows a parsing of arguments passed
9to a program. This is a useful library used in many software.
10There are many versions of the getopt library available, two
11popular versions being the BSD getopt and the GNU getopt.
12
13BSD getopt is somewhat old, dated, and isn't very user-friendly.
14The GNU getopt is great, except the user license doesn't let you
15statically link the library to a proprietary software. This
16is usually not a problem on modern operating systems that allow
17dynamic links to libraries, but sometimes you just gotta link
18the library statically for one reason or another. That's where
19Free Getopt steps in.
20
21Functionally, this getopt library is equivalent to GNU's getopt
22library (the short option version, not the long one) in almost
23every aspect. The only exception is how the "optind" variable
24increments. Apparently due to different algorithms used by my
25program and the GNU getopt, the "optind" changes quite differently
26between our two software. I personally find my algorithm to be
27quite elegant; I couldn't tell you about the GNU version since
28I never looked at its source.
29
30GNU's getopt_long support is in progress.
31
32This library was deliberately left in non-library (not in
33*.lib, *.so, or *.a) form because it's most likely to be
34statically-linked in various platforms, and linking it
35directly from source is probably the most straight-forward
36way to use the software in any platform.
37
38I hope you find this software useful.
39
40Mark K. Kim
41
42$Header: /home/dom/z88dk-git/cvs/z88dk/src/z80nm/getopt/README,v 1.1 2016-07-09 13:55:41 pauloscustodio Exp $
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