In Ruby, getoptlong destructively parses ARGV. Is there a way around this?

Question

I need to invoke getoptlong multiple times, but after the first time ARGV is empty.

Answer 1

Capture the args before the first call, put them back when you're done. Sounds like you're doing something kind of weird, though.

Edit: (expanded)

There's a lot of copying and pasting in here. I consider that helping with clarity:

require 'getoptlong'

storage = ARGV.clone

opts = GetoptLong.new(
  ['--help', '-h', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT ],
  [ '--repeat', '-n', GetoptLong::REQUIRED_ARGUMENT ],
  [ '--name', GetoptLong::OPTIONAL_ARGUMENT ]
)

puts "Before: #{ARGV.inspect}"
opts.each { |opt, arg| puts "Parsed #{opt} = #{arg}" }
puts "After: #{ARGV.inspect}"

# Copy
storage.each {|x| ARGV << x }

opts = GetoptLong.new(
  ['--help', '-h', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT ],
  [ '--repeat', '-n', GetoptLong::REQUIRED_ARGUMENT ],
  [ '--name', GetoptLong::OPTIONAL_ARGUMENT ]
)

puts "Before 2: #{ARGV.inspect}"
opts.each { |opt, arg| puts "Parsed #{opt} = #{arg}" }
puts "After 2: #{ARGV.inspect}"