Method #1

!/bin/bash

POSITIONAL=()
while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]
do
key="$1"

case $key in
-e|--extension)
EXTENSION="$2"
shift # past argument
shift # past value
;;
-s|--searchpath)
SEARCHPATH="$2"
shift # past argument
shift # past value
;;
-l|--lib)
LIBPATH="$2"
shift # past argument
shift # past value
;;
--default)
DEFAULT=YES
shift # past argument
;;
*) # unknown option
POSITIONAL+=("$1") # save it in an array for later
shift # past argument
;;
esac
done
set -- "${POSITIONAL[@]}" # restore positional parameters

TL;DR Awk crunches massive data; a High Performance Computing (HPC) script calls hundreds of Awk concurrently. Fast and scalable in-memory solution on a fat machine.