PLPARSEOPTS(3plplot)

✨ PLPARSEOPTS(3plplot) ✨

okay so this is a page from the PLplot API manual and honestly bestie, it's a good one — it's the function that eats your command line and tells you what's valid. let's get into it 💅

🌸 NAME 🌸

plparseopts — parse command-line arguments, aka the bouncer at the club door of your argv 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

PLINT plparseopts(p_argc, argv, mode)

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so basically: parse command-line arguments. that's the whole vibe. but like, there's lore.

plparseopts(3plplot) removes all recognized flags (decreasing argc accordingly), so that invalid input may be readily detected. lowkey genius, right? it literally deletes the stuff it understood so whatever's left over is the sus stuff 👀 It can also be used to process user command line flags. The user can merge an option table of type PLOptionTable into the internal option table info structure using plMergeOpts(3plplot). Or, the user can specify that ONLY the external table(s) be parsed by calling plClearOpts(3plplot) before plMergeOpts(3plplot). so you get to decide whose rules apply, no cap 🫶

The default action taken by plparseopts(3plplot) is as follows:

• Returns with an error if an unrecognized option or badly formed option-value pair are encountered. 🚨
• Returns immediately (return code 0) when the first non-option command line argument is found.
• Returns with the return code of the option handler, if one was called.
• Deletes command line arguments from argv list as they are found, and decrements argc accordingly. ✂️
• Does not show "invisible" options in usage or help messages. 🙈
• Assumes the program name is contained in argv[0].

These behaviors may be controlled through the mode argument. (the main character of this whole page, tbh 👑)

Redacted form: General: plparseopts(argv, mode)

This function is used in all of the examples. literally all of them, bestie, it's iconic like that ⭐

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🌈 ARGUMENTS 🌈

• p_argc (int *, input/output) — Number of arguments. it's a pointer and it's input/output, meaning this function will absolutely mess with it and that's on purpose 💅
• argv (PLCHAR_NC_MATRIX(3plplot), input/output) — A vector of character strings containing *p_argc command-line arguments. yes she's a matrix type, yes she's fancy 🦋
• mode (PLINT(3plplot), input) — Parsing mode with the following possibilities:
  • PL_PARSE_FULL (1) — Full parsing of command line and all error messages enabled, including program exit when an error occurs. Anything on the command line that isn't recognized as a valid option or option argument is flagged as an error. 👮‍♀️ no nonsense mode, fr fr
  • PL_PARSE_QUIET (2) — Turns off all output except in the case of errors. 🤫
  • PL_PARSE_NODELETE (4) — Turns off deletion of processed arguments. your argv stays intact, king behavior 🫶
  • PL_PARSE_SHOWALL (8) — Show invisible options. 👁️✨
  • PL_PARSE_NOPROGRAM (32) — Specified if argv[0] is NOT a pointer to the program name. plot twist 🌀
  • PL_PARSE_NODASH (64) — Set if leading dash is NOT required. dashes are optional now, we're chill like that 💅
  • PL_PARSE_SKIP (128) — Set to quietly skip over any unrecognized arguments. the "smile and wave" setting 😌

💀 side note bestie — these are bit values. 1, 2, 4, 8, 32, 64, 128. that's literally a bitfield, so yeah you can combine them. that's not me being an extra, that's just how numbers work.

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🎀 AUTHORS 🎀

Many developers (who are credited at http://plplot.sourceforge.net/credits.php) have contributed to PLplot over its long history. a whole squad, an entire friend group, and they're all in the group chat 🌸

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

PLplot documentation at http://plplot.sourceforge.net/documentation.php. go read it, iykyk 📚

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 💖 this was the PLplot API PLPARSEOPTS(3plplot) page, dated August, 2026 — and the version/source is the PLplot API itself, so like, go forth and parse those options, periodt 🔥👑