The variable optind is the index of the next element of the argv vector to be processed. It is initialized to 1 by the system, and it is updated by getopt when it finishes with each element of argv. When an element of argv contains multiple option characters, it is unspecified how getopt determines which options have already been processed. The getopt function returns the next option character (if one is found) from argv that matches a character in optstring, if there is one that matches. If the option takes an argument, getopt sets the variable optarg to point to the option-argument as follows: o If the option was the last character in the string pointed to by an element of argv, then optarg contains the next element of argv, and optind is incremented by 2. If the resulting value of optind is not less than argc, getopt returns an error, indicating a missing option-argument. o Otherwise, optarg points to the string following the option character in that element of argv, and optind is incremented by 1. If one of the following is true, getopt returns -1 without changing optind: argv[optind] is a NULL pointer *argv[optind] is not the character - argv[optind] points to the string "-" If argv[optind] points to the string "- -" getopt returns -1 after incrementing optind. If getopt encounters an option character not contained in optstring, the question-mark character (?) is returned. If getopt detects a missing argument, the colon character (:) is returned if the first character of optstring is a colon; otherwise, a question-mark character is returned. In either of the previous two cases, getopt sets the variable optopt to the option character that caused the error. If the application has not set the variable opterr to 0 and the first character of optstring is not a colon, getopt also prints a diagnostic message to stderr.