Syntax error near unexpected token `)'

I was trying to make a case statement in bash, and was getting this error:

./check: line 8: syntax error near unexpected token `)'
./check: line 8: `      1)'

Turns out this is the error you get if you forget the ;; at the end of each code block.

Using command line switches in bash scripts

I have a number of bash scripts that do useful things to lists of items, such as this:

./install_stuff.sh 10.0.0.2 10.0.5.3

By using shift, I can have the script run through various IP addresses, for example. But I wanted more. I wanted the same command to sometimes take -t tag as an option and do something different. It turns out there's a relatively easy way to do this using the getopts builtin in bash. However, while it easily found the option (if present), it ruined the shifting feature, until I figured it out. Here's a snippet that sets TAG if -t tag is present, and then is ready to be shifted through as normal.

while getopts "t:h" OPTIONNAME; do
case "$OPTIONNAME" in
t) TAG="$OPTARG";;
[?]) help;;
esac
done

shift $(($OPTIND - 1))

At this point, you can use $1 as normal; it will be the first non-option parameter. Additional options can be specified in a similar manner.