My bash function runs only once per terminal opened

Question

When I try to run my bash function, defined in .bashrc, for a second time in the same terminal, it doesn't work.

The code is the following:

function nos (){
    local option
        while getopts cs option
            do
            case $option in
                s)
                    #start my server
                ;;
                c)
                    local cdir="~/mydirectory"
                    local cdir_arg=""
                    case $OPTARG in
                        p)
                            local cdir_arg="anotherdirectory"
                        ;;
                    esac
                    local cdir="${cdir}${cdir_arg}"
                    cd $cdir
                    ;;
                *)
                    echo 'This function doesnt have Super Cow Powers'
                    return 1
                ;;
            esac
    done
}

I run this:

nos -c

it goes to ~/mydirectory

ok, worked.

but then I do this:

cd ~
nos -c

and nothing happens.

Answer 1

The getopts builtin keeps track of how far it's gone through the options through the OPTIND variable. The second time you run the function, $OPTIND has retained its value from the previous call, so the shell thinks it's already finished processing the options. See the description of getopts in the manual for more information.

Declare OPTIND and OPTARG as local to the function.

There's another mistake in your function, which is that ~ isn't expanded between double quotes. Make that local cdir=~/mydirectory or local cdir="$HOME/mydirectory"