I want to pause input in a shell script, and prompt the user for choices.
The standard Yes
, No
, or Cancel
type question.
How d
The easiest way to achieve this with the least number of lines is as follows:
read -p "<Your Friendly Message here> : y/n/cancel" CONDITION;
if [ "$CONDITION" == "y" ]; then
# do something here!
fi
The if
is just an example: it is up to you how to handle this variable.
inquire () {
echo -n "$1 [y/n]? "
read answer
finish="-1"
while [ "$finish" = '-1' ]
do
finish="1"
if [ "$answer" = '' ];
then
answer=""
else
case $answer in
y | Y | yes | YES ) answer="y";;
n | N | no | NO ) answer="n";;
*) finish="-1";
echo -n 'Invalid response -- please reenter:';
read answer;;
esac
fi
done
}
... other stuff
inquire "Install now?"
...
echo "Please enter some input: "
read input_variable
echo "You entered: $input_variable"
Multiple choice version:
ask () { # $1=question $2=options
# set REPLY
# options: x=..|y=..
while $(true); do
printf '%s [%s] ' "$1" "$2"
stty cbreak
REPLY=$(dd if=/dev/tty bs=1 count=1 2> /dev/null)
stty -cbreak
test "$REPLY" != "$(printf '\n')" && printf '\n'
(
IFS='|'
for o in $2; do
if [ "$REPLY" = "${o%%=*}" ]; then
printf '\n'
break
fi
done
) | grep ^ > /dev/null && return
done
}
Example:
$ ask 'continue?' 'y=yes|n=no|m=maybe'
continue? [y=yes|n=no|m=maybe] g
continue? [y=yes|n=no|m=maybe] k
continue? [y=yes|n=no|m=maybe] y
$
It will set REPLY
to y
(inside the script).
Inspired by the answers of @Mark and @Myrddin I created this function for a universal prompt
uniprompt(){
while true; do
echo -e "$1\c"
read opt
array=($2)
case "${array[@]}" in *"$opt"*) eval "$3=$opt";return 0;; esac
echo -e "$opt is not a correct value\n"
done
}
use it like this:
unipromtp "Select an option: (a)-Do one (x)->Do two (f)->Do three : " "a x f" selection
echo "$selection"
read -p "Are you alright? (y/n) " RESP
if [ "$RESP" = "y" ]; then
echo "Glad to hear it"
else
echo "You need more bash programming"
fi