The getops Function

• Many scripts depend heavily upon command line arguments, or positional parameters, so writers frequently use the getopts function to make processing them easier.

• It's often used for the -x form (the "dash" form) of options because of all the many combinations.

• For example, consider a command which can have options -x, -y, and -z in any order and any combination (like -xz and -zx), giving at least 29 (I counted) valid combinations. You don't want to write script code for each possibility!