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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Using read to prompt for editable user input in Bash 3 Post 302736929 by Don Cragun on Wednesday 28th of November 2012 07:05:13 AM
Old 11-28-2012
A simpler portable way to do the same thing is:
Code:
#!/bin/bash
default=user1
printf "Please enter the username you would like to add (%s): " "$default"
read input
USERNAME=${input:-$default}
echo USERNAME is $USERNAME

It should work with any version of bash, ksh, or any other POSIX conforming shell.
The only portable option to the read utility is -r.

Note that I used printf instead of echo because the way you specify printing a prompt without a newline using echo varies from system to system.
 

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ECHO(1) 						    BSD General Commands Manual 						   ECHO(1)

NAME
echo -- write arguments to the standard output SYNOPSIS
echo [-n] [string ...] DESCRIPTION
The echo utility writes any specified operands, separated by single blank (' ') characters and followed by a newline (' ') character, to the standard output. The following option is available: -n Do not print the trailing newline character. This may also be achieved by appending 'c' to the end of the string, as is done by iBCS2 compatible systems. Note that this option as well as the effect of 'c' are implementation-defined in IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'') as amended by Cor. 1-2002. Applications aiming for maximum portability are strongly encouraged to use printf(1) to sup- press the newline character. Some shells may provide a builtin echo command which is similar or identical to this utility. Most notably, the builtin echo in sh(1) does not accept the -n option. Consult the builtin(1) manual page. EXIT STATUS
The echo utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. SEE ALSO
builtin(1), csh(1), printf(1), sh(1) STANDARDS
The echo utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'') as amended by Cor. 1-2002. BSD
April 12, 2003 BSD
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