Never use getopt(1). Traditional versions of getopt cannot handle empty argument strings, or arguments with embedded whitespace. There is a version of getopt(1) in util-linux, but you should not use it. Why not? Because you would need to write special safety-checking code to ensure that you’ve actually got this nonstandard getopt, and then you would still need to write a fallback option processor for when you don’t have it. So you’re doing twice as much work and getting no significant benefits for it.