ELGETPOSITIONALS(1)

💅 ELGETPOSITIONALS(1) — the execline positional-parameter glow-up 💅

okay so bestie, quick vibe check: this is a General Commands Manual page for elgetpositionals, and it's genuinely iconic. it does exactly what the name says — it substitutes the positional parameters of an execline script. no cap. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

elgetpositionals [-P sharp] prog...

that's the whole shape of it. prog... is your program and its args, and -P sharp is the optional little sprinkle on top 🎀

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so. elgetpositionals reads the number n of “positional parameters” out of the # environment variable. that's the whole source of truth. and if that variable isn't set, or it doesn't contain a valid n? girl, it's over — elgetpositionals exits 100. 😭

then it performs some substitutions (cf. execline-substitute(7)) in parallel on prog.... and here's the tea, substitution by substitution:

• key #, value: n
• key 0, value: whatever the 0 environment variable holds
• key 1, value: whatever the 1 environment variable holds
• ... and so on and so on until n (or until sharp, if sharp is greater than n). and listen — those values are never transformed. periodt. 💅
• key @, value: all the values of the variables from 1 to n. this value gets split (cf. execline-transform(7)) into n words.

⚠️ and if a variable between 0 and n doesn't exist? yeah. elgetpositionals exits 100. that's the rule, i don't make 'em.

a typical argument-taking execline script will often begin this way, and honestly it's giving main character energy:

#!/command/execlineb
elgetopt optstring
elgetpositionals
prog...

if you're performing other substitutions that don't depend on the positional parameters, lowkey think about replacing the elgetpositionals call with a multisubstitute(1) call containing the elgetpositionals directive. 👑

and if you're going to use the shift(1) command — okay this is important — it's best to use importas(1) to substitute the first positional parameters, then use shift(1), then elgetpositionals. that way $@ will correctly be replaced by the remaining arguments. more generally? you should try to use elgetpositionals as late as possible. fr fr. 🌈

also, use execlineb(1)'s -S switch instead of elgetpositionals whenever you can. it's more efficient. not me telling you the faster way, but like, i am 💀

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -P sharp — substitute at least sharp+1 positional parameters, from 0 to max(n, sharp). and if n < sharp, the positional parameters between n+1 and sharp get replaced with the empty string. oh and not having the -P switch? that's equivalent to having -P 0. iykyk ✨

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• define(1)
• elglob(1)
• execlineb(1)
• importas(1)
• multidefine(1)
• multisubstitute(1)
• shift(1)
• execline-substitute(7)
• execline-transform(7)

this man page is ported from the authoritative documentation at: https://skarnet.org/software/execline/elgetpositionals.html — the source material, the blueprint, the origin story 🧚

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

• Laurent Bercot
• Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com> (man page port)

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okay that's the whole page, you ate that. go substitute some positional parameters bestie 🌸💜✨

Debian · February 14, 2021 · valentine's day release, how romantic is that 🍓🎀💖