Getopt/long and ARGV

Why does getopts delete the option _arguments_ but not the options themselves from ARGV:

$ cat opt.rb
   require "getopt/long"
   include Getopt
   opts = Long.getopts(
      ["--plot", BOOLEAN],
      ["--foo", OPTIONAL]
   )
   p ARGV

$ ruby opt.rb --plot --foo 8
["--plot", "--foo"]

Wouldn't it be better for #getopts to delete all members of ARGV that it recognizes? Then you can use ARGF for the remaining file names.

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       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407