In a bash script, I need to parse arguments that have the following form:

1. The main arguments can be thought of as being a single argument, but I do not want to force users to quote the entire thing, so when the argument contains spaces I must be able to handle multiple arguments.

2. One flag may be passed as -<flag> where <flag> can be an arbitrary word (without spaces)

3. Finally, an external command, including its own options and flags may be passed. If so, this should be separated by a double dash.

For example,

my_command test

should result in

"$inp" == "test"
"$flag" == ""
"$ext_command" == ""

and

my_command this is a test -new -- sed "s|a|b|"

should result in

"$inp" == "this is a test"
"$flag" == "new"
"$ext_command" == "sed \"s|a|b\""

I think the following script does what I want, but since it's my first bash script, I wanted to ask whether the script is idiomatic and whether I missed any border cases.

local inp=""
local flag=""
local ext_command=""
local count="1"    
local started=""
for i
do
    count=$((count+1))
    if [[ "$i" == '--' ]]
    then
        ext_command="${@:count}"
        break
    else
        if [[ "$i" == -* ]];
        then
           flag=${i#*-}
        else
            if [ ! "$started" ]
            then
                inp="$i"
                started=1
            else
                inp="$inp $i"
            fi
        fi
    fi
done

In a bash script, I need to parse arguments that have the following form:

1. The main arguments can be thought of as being a single argument, but I do not want to force users to quote the entire thing, so when the argument contains spaces I must be able to handle multiple arguments.

2. One flag may be passed as -<flag> where <flag> can be an arbitrary word (without spaces)

3. Finally, an external command, including its own options and flags may be passed. If so, this should be separated by a double dash.

For example,

my_command test

should result in

"$inp" == "test"
"$flag" == ""
"$ext_command" == ""

and

my_command this is a test -new -- sed "s|a|b|"

should result in

"$inp" == "this is a test"
"$flag" == "new"
"$ext_command" == "sed \"s|a|b\""

I think the following script does what I want, but since it's my first bash script, I wanted to ask whether the script is idiomatic and whether I missed any border cases.

local inp=""
local flag=""
local ext_command=""
local count="1"    
local started=""
for i
do
    count=$((count+1))
    if [[ "$i" == '--' ]]
    then
        ext_command="${@:count}"
        break
    else
        if [[ "$i" == -* ]];
        then
           flag=${i#*-}
        else
            if [ ! "$started" ]
            then
                inp="$i"
                started=1
            else
                inp="$inp $i"
            fi
        fi
    fi
done

In a bash script, I need to parse arguments that have the following form:

1. The main arguments can be thought of as being a single argument, but I do not want to force users to quote the entire thing, so when the argument contains spaces I must be able to handle multiple arguments.

2. One flag may be passed as -<flag> where <flag> can be an arbitrary word (without spaces)

3. Finally, an external command, including its own options and flags may be passed. If so, this should be separated by a double dash.

For example,

my_command test

should result in

"$inp" == "test"
"$flag" == ""
"$ext_command" == ""

and

my_command this is a test -new -- sed "s|a|b|"

should result in

"$inp" == "this is a test"
"$flag" == "new"
"$ext_command" == "sed \"s|a|b\""

I think the following script does what I want, but since it's my first bash script, I wanted to double check if there are some border cases that I didn't consider and whether the script is idiomatic.

local inp=""
local flag=""
local ext_command=""
local count="1"    
local started=""
for i
do
    count=$((count+1))
    if [[ "$i" == '--' ]]
    then
        ext_command="${@:count}"
        break
    else
        if [[ "$i" == -* ]];
        then
           flag=${i#*-}
        else
            if [ ! "$started" ]
            then
                inp="$i"
                started=1
            else
                inp="$inp $i"
            fi
        fi
    fi
done

In a bash script, I need to parse arguments that have the following form:

1. The main arguments can be thought of as being a single argument, but I do not want to force users to quote the entire thing, so when the argument contains spaces I must be able to handle multiple arguments.

2. One flag may be passed as -<flag> where <flag> can be an arbitrary word (without spaces)

3. Finally, an external command, including its own options and flags may be passed. If so, this should be separated by a double dash.

For example,

my_command test

should result in

"$inp" == "test"
"$flag" == ""
"$ext_command" == ""

and

my_command this is a test -new -- sed "s|a|b|"

should result in

"$inp" == "this is a test"
"$flag" == "new"
"$ext_command" == "sed \"s|a|b\""

I think the following script does what I want, but since it's my first bash script, I wanted to ask whether the script is idiomatic and whether I missed any border cases.

local inp=""
local flag=""
local ext_command=""
local count="1"    
local started=""
for i
do
    count=$((count+1))
    if [[ "$i" == '--' ]]
    then
        ext_command="${@:count}"
        break
    else
        if [[ "$i" == -* ]];
        then
           flag=${i#*-}
        else
            if [ ! "$started" ]
            then
                inp="$i"
                started=1
            else
                inp="$inp $i"
            fi
        fi
    fi
done