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The GNU C Library

25.3 Parsing Program Options with Argp

Argp is an interface for parsing unix-style argument vectors. See section 25.1 Program Arguments.

Argp provides features unavailable in the more commonly used getopt interface. These features include automatically producing output in response to the `--help' and `--version' options, as described in the GNU coding standards. Using argp makes it less likely that programmers will neglect to implement these additional options or keep them up to date.

Argp also provides the ability to merge several independently defined option parsers into one, mediating conflicts between them and making the result appear seamless. A library can export an argp option parser that user programs might employ in conjunction with their own option parsers, resulting in less work for the user programs. Some programs may use only argument parsers exported by libraries, thereby achieving consistent and efficient option-parsing for abstractions implemented by the libraries.

The header file `<argp.h>' should be included to use argp.