using getopt_long, how to store two values in optarg?

Question

If I define

static struct option long_option[]={ {"add", 1, 0, 'a'} }

can I store two values in the optarg? This is the code what I want to use:

./a.out --add Tommy 123-123-123

and I would like to store two values, Tommy and 123-123-123 by using --add once.

Answer 1

I'm afraid you can't. According to getopt man page, getopt uses next argument. So you can :

• either use ./a.out --add 'Tommy 123-123-123' and the quotes makes the shell take 'Tommy 123-123-123' as a single argument
• or program by hand your own option parser