[Solved] getopt adding extra functionality in C

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Taken directly from the GNU C Library Reference page on getopt:

while ((c = getopt (argc, argv, "abc:")) != -1)
    switch (c)
    {
        case 'a':
            aflag = 1;
            break;
        case 'b':
            bflag = 1;
            break;
        case 'c':
            cvalue = optarg;
            break;
        case '?':
            if (optopt == 'c')
                fprintf (stderr, "Option -%c requires an argument.\n", optopt);
            else if (isprint (optopt))
                fprintf (stderr, "Unknown option `-%c'.\n", optopt);
            else
                fprintf (stderr, "Unknown option character `\\x%x'.\n", optopt);
            return 1;
        default:
            abort();
    }

c here is the argument that takes an optional parameter, so this is probably the syntax you were looking for.

What I understand getopt does is loop through the given arguments, parsing them one at a time. So when it gets to the option c (in your case p) where a second argument is required, it is stored in optarg. This is assigned to a variable of your choice (here cvalue) for later processing.

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solved getopt adding extra functionality in C