Hi all,

I'm sure this is quite a simple problem, but i'm completely new to shell scripting, so bare with me. Having problems with the read command. Here's what I have:

read -rp "Command to execute: " the_command
...
...
echo "$the_command"
...
...
eval "$the_command"

Now, say, for instance the user enters the command to execute as echo "this is a test" - all works fine... the echo shows the correct command and the eval executes the command, echoing "this is a test".

BUT... if the user enters the command as echo "this id a typeo" - they go back to correct the mistake so that it now reads echo "this is a typeo" - now the script errors. The echo shows the correct command, but the eval has a problem. Is it possible that the variable the_command is getting every keystroke (including backspaces) and not just the final string? Can someone please help out a newbie

Cheers,
Justin