Bug #127584 for Getopt-Long: Optional hash-valued option warns when key is missing, even though the key is not required

Tue Nov 06 14:27:11 2018 cxwembedded [...] gmail.com - Ticket created

Subject:

Optional hash-valued option warns when key is missing, even though the key is not required

Minimal test case of Getopt::Long v2.50 on perl 5.26.1, Cygwin x64: $ perl -MGetopt::Long -E 'my %o; GetOptions(\%o, "v:s%")' -- -v Use of uninitialized value $key in anonymous hash ({}) at .../perl-5.26.1/lib/site_perl/5.26.1/Getopt/Long.pm line 659. The specification `:s%`, permitting optional hash values, is rather strange. However, suppose someone typed it instead of `=s%` by accident! I would expect $o{v} == {} in that case, without the "uninitialized-value" message. If you have opportunity, would you be willing to look at this? Thank you!

Tue Aug 13 03:57:43 2019 jv [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

The intention of `:s%` is to assign keys without values. In your example the following is legal: -v xx it adds (or modifies) key 'xx' with an empty value. Would it be written `s=%`, then the above would give an error that a value is required for key 'xx'. Using `-v` without key is not valid, but this situation is not correctly dealt with and yields a perl warning instead of a Getopt::Long error.

Tue Aug 13 03:57:44 2019 The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

Tue Aug 13 13:15:54 2019 jv [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

The next version of Getopt::Long will issue a neat warning: "Option v requires an argument"

Tue Aug 13 13:15:55 2019 jv [...] cpan.org - Status changed from 'open' to 'resolved'

Tue Aug 13 13:15:55 2019 jv [...] cpan.org - Taken