"Multiple occurrences" exception for boost program_options - c++

Question

I am writing the following code on boost's program_options (version 1.42). This seems straight-forward and taken pretty much as is from the tutorial. However, I get a "multiple_occurrences" error. Further investigation discovers that it's (probably) the "filename" parameter that raises it.
The parameters I am giving are:
3 1 test.txt 100
I have no insight to it whatsoever.. any help will be appreciated.
po::options_description common("Common options");
common.add_options()
("help", "produce help message")
("motif_size", po::value<int>(&motif_size), "Size of motif (subgraph)")
("prob", po::value<double>(&prob), "Probably to continue examining an edge")
("filename", po::value<string>(&input_filename), "Filename of the input graph")
("repeats", po::value<int>(&n_estimates), "Number of estimates")
;
po::options_description all;
all.add(common);
po::positional_options_description p;
p.add("motif_size", 0).add("prob", 1).add("filename", 2).add("repeats", 3);
po::variables_map vm;
po::store(po::command_line_parser(argc, argv).
options(all).positional(p).run(), vm);
po::notify(vm);

Answer 1

EDIT:
the second parameter to po::positional_options_description::add is the max count, not the position. The position is implied in the order you specify the positional options. So
p.add("motif_size", 0).add("prob", 1).add("filename", 2).add("repeats", 3);
should be
p.add("motif_size", 1).add("prob", 1).add("filename", 1).add("repeats", 1);
Here's a compilable snippet
include <boost/program_options.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int
main(unsigned argc, char** argv)
{
namespace po = boost::program_options;
po::options_description common("Common options");
common.add_options()
("help", "produce help message")
("motif_size", po::value<int>(), "Size of motif (subgraph)")
("prob", po::value<double>(), "Probably to continue examining an edge")
("filename", po::value<std::string>(), "Filename of the input graph")
("repeats", po::value<int>(), "Number of estimates")
;
po::options_description all;
all.add(common);
po::positional_options_description p;
p.add("motif_size", 1).add("prob", 1).add("filename", 1).add("repeats", 1);
po::variables_map vm;
try {
po::store(po::command_line_parser(argc, argv).
options(all).positional(p).run(), vm);
po::notify(vm);
} catch ( const boost::program_options::error& e ) {
std::cerr << e.what() << std::endl;
}
return 0;
}
and sample invocation.
macmini:~ samm$ g++ parse.cc -lboost_program_options
macmini:~ samm$ ./a.out 3 1 test.txt 100
macmini:~ samm$
My original answer is below.
What version of program_options? I had the same problem using boost 1.39, to solve it I ended up using boost 1.42.
Here's a link to the ticket describing the problem, and a patch to apply if you don't want to or can't upgrade your copy of boost. To use the new functionality, do something like this
try {
// argument parsing goes here
} catch ( const boost::program_options::multiple_occurrences& e ) {
std::cerr << e.what() << " from option: " << e.get_option_name() << std::endl;
}