Provided by: libnagios-plugin-perl_0.36-2_all 
NAME
Nagios::Plugin::Getopt - OO perl module providing standardised argument processing for Nagios plugins
SYNOPSIS
use Nagios::Plugin::Getopt;
# Instantiate object (usage is mandatory)
$ng = Nagios::Plugin::Getopt->new(
usage => "Usage: %s -H <host> -w <warning> -c <critical>",
version => '0.1',
url => 'http://www.openfusion.com.au/labs/nagios/',
blurb => 'This plugin tests various stuff.',
);
# Add argument - named parameters (spec and help are mandatory)
$ng->arg(
spec => 'critical|c=i',
help => q(Exit with CRITICAL status if fewer than INTEGER foobars are free),
required => 1,
default => 10,
);
# Add argument - positional parameters - arg spec, help text,
# default value, required? (first two mandatory)
$ng->arg(
'warning|w=i',
q(Exit with WARNING status if fewer than INTEGER foobars are free),
5,
1);
# Parse arguments and process standard ones (e.g. usage, help, version)
$ng->getopts;
# Access arguments using named accessors or or via the generic get()
print $ng->warning;
print $ng->get('critical');
DESCRIPTION
Nagios::Plugin::Getopt is an OO perl module providing standardised and simplified argument processing for
Nagios plugins. It implements a number of standard arguments itself (--help, --version, --usage,
--timeout, --verbose, and their short form counterparts), produces standardised nagios plugin help
output, and allows additional arguments to be easily defined.
CONSTRUCTOR
# Instantiate object (usage is mandatory)
$ng = Nagios::Plugin::Getopt->new(
usage => 'Usage: %s --hello',
version => '0.01',
);
The Nagios::Plugin::Getopt constructor accepts the following named arguments:
usage (required)
Short usage message used with --usage/-? and with missing required arguments, and included in the
longer --help output. Can include a '%s' sprintf placeholder which will be replaced with the plugin
name e.g.
usage => qq(Usage: %s -H <hostname> -p <ports> [-v]),
might be displayed as:
$ ./check_tcp_range --usage
Usage: check_tcp_range -H <hostname> -p <ports> [-v]
version (required)
Plugin version number, included in the --version/-V output, and in the longer --help output. e.g.
$ ./check_tcp_range --version
check_tcp_range 0.2 [http://www.openfusion.com.au/labs/nagios/]
url URL for info about this plugin, included in the --version/-V output, and in the longer --help output
(see preceding 'version' example).
blurb
Short plugin description, included in the longer --help output (see below for an example).
license
License text, included in the longer --help output (see below for an example). By default, this is
set to the standard nagios plugins GPL license text:
This nagios plugin is free software, and comes with ABSOLUTELY
NO WARRANTY. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under
the terms of the GNU General Public Licence (see
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt).
Provide your own to replace this text in the help output.
extra
Extra text to be appended at the end of the longer --help output.
plugin
Plugin name. This defaults to the basename of your plugin, which is usually correct, but you can set
it explicitly if not.
timeout
Timeout period in seconds, overriding the standard timeout default (15 seconds).
The full --help output has the following form:
version string
license string
blurb
usage string
options list
extra text
The 'blurb' and 'extra text' sections are omitted if not supplied. For example:
$ ./check_tcp_range -h
check_tcp_range 0.2 [http://www.openfusion.com.au/labs/nagios/]
This nagios plugin is free software, and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the GNU
General Public Licence (see http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt).
This plugin tests arbitrary ranges/sets of tcp ports for a host.
Usage: check_tcp_range -H <hostname> -p <ports> [-v]
Options:
-h, --help
Print detailed help screen
-V, --version
Print version information
-H, --hostname=ADDRESS
Host name or IP address
-p, --ports=STRING
Port numbers to check. Format: comma-separated, colons for ranges,
no spaces e.g. 8700:8705,8710:8715,8760
-t, --timeout=INTEGER
Seconds before plugin times out (default: 15)
-v, --verbose
Show details for command-line debugging (can repeat up to 3 times)
ARGUMENTS
You can define arguments for your plugin using the arg() method, which supports both named and positional
arguments. In both cases the "spec" and "help" arguments are required, while the "label", "default", and
"required" arguments are optional:
# Define --hello argument (named parameters)
$ng->arg(
spec => 'hello|h=s',
help => "Hello string",
required => 1,
);
# Define --hello argument (positional parameters)
# Parameter order is 'spec', 'help', 'default', 'required?', 'label'
$ng->arg('hello|h=s', "Hello parameter (default %s)", 5, 1);
spec
The "spec" argument (the first argument in the positional variant) is a Getopt::Long argument
specification. See Getopt::Long for the details, but basically it is a series of one or more argument
names for this argument (separated by '|'), suffixed with an '=<type>' indicator if the argument
takes a value. '=s' indicates a string argument; '=i' indicates an integer argument; appending an '@'
indicates multiple such arguments are accepted; and so on. The following are some examples:
hello=s
hello|h=s
ports|port|p=i
exclude|X=s@
verbose|v+
help
The "help" argument is a string displayed in the --help option list output, or it can be a list (an
arrayref) of such strings, for multi-line help (see below).
The help string is munged in two ways:
• First, if the help string does NOT begins with a '-' sign, it is prefixed by an expanded form of
the "spec" argument. For instance, the following hello argument:
$ng->arg(
spec => 'hello|h=s',
help => "Hello string",
);
would be displayed in the help output as:
-h, --hello=STRING
Hello string
where the '-h, --hello=STRING' part is derived from the spec definition (by convention with short
args first, then long, then label/type, if any).
• Second, if the string contains a '%s' it will be formatted via "sprintf" with the 'default' as
the argument i.e.
sprintf($help, $default)
Multi-line help is useful in cases where an argument can be of different types and you want to make
this explicit in your help output e.g.
$ng->arg(
spec => 'warning|w=s',
help => [
'Exit with WARNING status if less than BYTES bytes of disk are free',
'Exit with WARNING status if less than PERCENT of disk is free',
],
label => [ 'BYTES', 'PERCENT%' ],
);
would be displayed in the help output as:
-w, --warning=BYTES
Exit with WARNING status if less than BYTES bytes of disk are free
-w, --warning=PERCENT%
Exit with WARNING status if less than PERCENT of disk space is free
Note that in this case we've also specified explicit labels in another arrayref corresponding to the
"help" one - if this had been omitted the types would have defaulted to 'STRING', instead of 'BYTES'
and 'PERCENT%'.
label
The "label" argument is a scalar or an arrayref (see 'Multi-line help' description above) that
overrides the standard type expansion when generating help text from the spec definition. By default,
"spec=i" arguments are labelled as "=INTEGER" in the help text, and "spec=s" arguments are labelled
as "=STRING". By supplying your own "label" argument you can override these standard 'INTEGER' and
'STRING' designations.
For multi-line help, you can supply an ordered list (arrayref) of labels to match the list of help
strings e.g.
label => [ 'BYTES', 'PERCENT%' ]
Any labels that are left as undef (or just omitted, if trailing) will just use the default 'INTEGER'
or 'STRING' designations e.g.
label => [ undef, 'PERCENT%' ]
default
The "default" argument is the default value to be given to this parameter if none is explicitly
supplied.
required
The "required" argument is a boolean used to indicate that this argument is mandatory
(Nagios::Plugin::Getopt will exit with your usage message and a 'Missing argument' indicator if any
required arguments are not supplied).
Note that --help lists your arguments in the order they are defined, so you should order your "arg()"
calls accordingly.
GETOPTS
The main parsing and processing functionality is provided by the getopts() method, which takes no
arguments:
# Parse and process arguments
$ng->getopts;
This parses the command line arguments passed to your plugin using Getopt::Long and the builtin and
provided argument specifications. Flags and argument values are recorded within the object, and can be
accessed either using the generic get() accessor, or using named accessors corresponding to your argument
names. For example:
print $ng->get('hello');
print $ng->hello();
if ($ng->verbose) {
# ...
}
if ($ng->get('ports') =~ m/:/) {
# ...
}
Note that where you have defined alternate argument names, the first is considered the citation form. All
the builtin arguments are available using their long variant names.
BUILTIN PROCESSING
The "getopts()" method also handles processing of the immediate builtin arguments, namely --usage,
--version, --help, as well as checking all required arguments have been supplied, so you don't have to
handle those yourself. This means that your plugin will exit from the getopts() call in these cases - if
you want to catch that you can run getopts() within an eval{}.
"getopts()" also sets up a default ALRM timeout handler so you can use an
alarm $ng->timeout;
around any blocking operations within your plugin (which you are free to override if you want to use a
custom timeout message).
SEE ALSO
Nagios::Plugin, Getopt::Long
AUTHOR
Gavin Carr <gavin@openfusion.com.au>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2006-2007 by the Nagios Plugin Development Team.
This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under either the terms of the
Perl Artistic License (see http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html) or the GNU General Public Licence
(see http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt).
perl v5.20.2 2010-12-03 Nagios::Plugin::Getopt(3pm)