I agree -- the existing text is a bit broken. I've rewritten it for man-pages-2.04. Please close this report.
The new text is: RETURN VALUE If an option was successfully found, then getopt() returns the option character. If all command-line options have been parsed, then getopt() returns -1. If getopt() encounters an option character that was not in optstring, then '?' is returned. If getopt() encounters an option with a missing argument, then the return value depends on the first character in optstring: if it is ':', then ':' is returned; otherwise '?' is returned. Cheers, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 Want to help with man page maintenance? Grab the latest tarball at ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/manpages/ and grep the source files for 'FIXME'. Please submit non-trivial man page suggestions as "diff -u" patches. Weitersagen: GMX DSL-Flatrates mit Tempo-Garantie! Ab 4,99 Euro/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]