Read not prompting/ pausing for input Post: 302787417

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Read not prompting/ pausing for input Post 302787417 by Cloudy_Cat on Friday 29th of March 2013 01:16:58 PM

03-29-2013

Registered User

Read not prompting/ pausing for input

Heya people,
So my script is one of those make-user-scripts, making a bunch of directories in the home folder and copying some files over into the new directories.
However, part of the thing my script need to do is check the home folder if a username matches with a directory which already exists.
e.g. if the username 'user1' has a directory in the home folder under the same name, it will prompt the user if he/she wants to keep or delete the directory (and its contents) before moving on with the script.

Here is the part of the script which does this:

Code:

cat $1 | while read line; do 

    username=$line
    if [ -d $4/$username ];
        then
        echo WARNING username $username already has a directory.
        read -p "Would you like to KEEP or DELETE?" answer
        
        if [ "$answer" == "DELETE" ];
            then
            rm -fr $4/$username
        elif [ "$answer" == "KEEP" ];
            then
            echo "Keeping directory $username"
        else
            echo "Unknown answer assuming keeping file"
        fi

    fi

done

Where:
$1 = path to the username_list file
$4 = path to the home directory for user creation

Now as the thread title suggests, the problem is the read line is not prompting for user input.
I suspect it may be something to do with the fact I'm piping via the while loop, but I don't know I'm just a newbie to all this. Can anyone suggest a solution to this?

Thanks in advance,

Cloudy

Cloudy_Cat

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LEARN ABOUT ULTRIX

packf

packf(1mh) packf(1mh)

Name
packf - compress a folder into a single file

Syntax
packf [ +folder ] [ msgs ] [ -file name ] [ -help ]

Description
Each message in a folder is normally stored as a separate file. The command takes all messages from the current folder and copies them to
a single specified file. Each message in the file is separated by four <CTRL/A>s and a newline.

You can specify a folder other than the current folder by using the +folder argument. If you do not want all the messages in a folder to
be packed into one file, you can specify a number of messages or a range of messages with message numbers.

The first message packed will become the current message. If you specify a +folder argument, that folder will become the current folder.

When messages have been packed into a file using you can separate them into individual messages using the command. See

Options
-file name
Specifies the file in which you want the message(s) to be stored. If you specify an existing file then the specified messages
will be appended to the end of that file. Otherwise, a new file will be created and the messages placed in it. If you do not
specify a filename, attempts to place the messages in a file called in the current working directory. If this file does not
exist, asks whether you want to create it.

-help Prints a list of the valid options to this command.

The default settings for this command are:

+folder defaults to the current folder
msgs defaults to all
-file ./msgbox

Examples
The first example shows all the messages in the folder being packed into a file called
% packf +lrp -file planning

The next example shows how prompts you if you do not specify a -file option. A file called is created by in your home directory, and mes-
sages 3 to 5 are packed into it:
% packf +lrp 3-5
Create file "/machine/disk/username/msgbox"? y

Profile Components
Path: To determine the user's Mail directory
Msg-Protect: To set protections when creating a new file

Files
$HOME/.mh_profile The user profile.

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