ARGBASH(1)

💖 ARGBASH(1) — the bestie edition of this manual, no cap 💖

✨ NAME ✨

argbash — Argbash is an argument parser generator for Bash. Periodt. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

argbash  [--output OUTPUT] [--in-place] [--type type] [--library]
[--strip content] [--check-typos] [--commented] [--search SEARCH]...
[--debug DEBUG] [--help] [--version] <input>

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so argbash is a code generator that typically generates a bash argument-parsing library tailor-made for your script. It lets you describe arguments your script should take, and then you can generate the bash parsing code. The generated code stays in your script by default, but you can have it generated to a separate file and let bash include it in your script for you. Argbash is very simple to use and the generated code is relatively nice to read. Moreover, argument definitions stay embedded in the script, so when you need to update the parsing logic, you just re-run the argbash script on the already generated script. Obsessed, honestly. 💖

🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

Here’s the whole flag family, bestie — same facts, extra sparkle:

• -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT — Name of the output file (pass - for stdout). Default: -.
• -i, --in-place — Update a bash script in-place. Default: off.
• -t, --type bash-script|posix-script|manpage|manpage-defs|completion|docopt|excised — Output type to generate. Default: bash-script. Check out the documentation to learn about all argbash capabilities that are supported.
• --library — Whether the input file is the pure parsing library. Default: off. 🚨 This option is deprecated and it is the same as --strip user-content.
• --strip none|user-content|all — Determines what to have in the output. Default: none. You can either strip none, which is useful for scripts. If you strip user-content, you keep the Argbash header. If you strip all, you will have only the generated content in the result.
• --check-typos — Whether to check for possible argbash macro typos. Default: on.
• -c, --commented — Commented mode - include explanatory comments with the parsing code. Default: off.
• -I SEARCH, --search SEARCH — Directories to search for the wrapped scripts (directory of the template will be added to the end of the list). Default: ".".
• --debug DEBUG — (developer option) Tell autom4te to trace a macro.
• -h, --help — Prints help.
• -v, --version — Prints version.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Matěj Týč — iconic, obviously. No cap. 💜

---

💖 That’s the whole page, bestie — argbash 2.11.0, dated 2025-05-27, version and date cute and accounted for. She ate and left no crumbs. 💖