diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 646e179aa3..5c3b2b67f3 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+Mon Nov  4 03:59:51 2002  Akinori MUSHA  <knu@iDaemons.org>
+
+	* lib/getopts.rb: Do not choke on characters that cannot be used
+	  in a variable name.  Replace them with `_'.  Define a hash named
+	  $OPT for convenience.
+
 Sat Nov  2 00:38:55 2002  Yukihiro Matsumoto  <matz@ruby-lang.org>
 
 	* object.c (Init_Object): added Object#object_id, new name for
diff --git a/lib/getopts.rb b/lib/getopts.rb
index b1cffd9ba0..34fb0d6442 100644
--- a/lib/getopts.rb
+++ b/lib/getopts.rb
@@ -105,11 +105,19 @@ def getopts(single_options, *options)
   #
   # set
   #
+  $OPT = {}
+
   boolopts.each do |opt, val|
-    eval "$OPT_#{opt} = val"
+    $OPT[opt] = val
+
+    sopt = opt.gsub(/[^A-Za-z0-9_]/, '_')
+    eval "$OPT_#{sopt} = val"
   end
   valopts.each do |opt, val|
-    eval "$OPT_#{opt} = val"
+    $OPT[opt] = val
+
+    sopt = opt.gsub(/[^A-Za-z0-9_]/, '_')
+    eval "$OPT_#{sopt} = val"
   end
 
   c