How to ask...??? Post: 7496

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Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users How to ask...??? Post 7496 by LivinFree on Thursday 27th of September 2001 02:40:29 AM

09-27-2001

Registered User

Well, to ask a questions, and record the answer in memory, use the "read" builtin command. Here's an example (I wrote it in sh instead of ksh, since I don't know which you're using, if either- this should be portable between the two, with the exception of the echo statement):

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# Simple example to read in a line, then echo it out

# If you're using Linux, you'll need to use "echo -e"
# instead of "echo".

echo "Enter a string: \c"

# The \c tells echo not to add a new line

read input

# That's where it takes your input and stores it into the 
# variable "input" - you can name this whatever you want

echo "\nThe \$input variable was: $input"

# The "\n" forces echo to insert a new line at that spot

Of course this script isn't of much use to anyone, but it gives an example of using read.
Hope that helps.

LivinFree

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LEARN ABOUT SUNOS

echo

echo(1B)					     SunOS/BSD Compatibility Package Commands						  echo(1B)

NAME

       echo - echo arguments to standard output

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/ucb/echo [-n] [argument]

DESCRIPTION

       echo writes its arguments, separated by BLANKs and terminated by a NEWLINE, to the standard output.

       echo  is useful for producing diagnostics in command files and for sending known data into a pipe, and for displaying the contents of envi-
       ronment variables.

       For example, you can use echo to determine how many subdirectories below the root directory (/) is your current directory, as follows:

	 o  echo your current-working-directory's full pathname

	 o  pipe the output through tr to translate the path's embedded slash-characters into space-characters

	 o  pipe that output through wc -w for a count of the names in your path.

	      example% /usr/bin/echo "echo $PWD | tr '/' ' ' | wc -w"

       See tr(1) and wc(1) for their functionality.

       The shells csh(1), ksh(1), and sh(1), each have an echo built-in command, which, by default, will have precedence, and will be  invoked	if
       the  user  calls  echo without a full pathname. /usr/ucb/echo and csh's echo() have an -n option, but do not understand back-slashed escape
       characters. sh's echo(), ksh's echo(), and /usr/bin/echo, on the other hand, understand the  black-slashed  escape  characters,	and  ksh's
       echo() also understands a as the audible bell character; however, these commands do not have an -n option.

OPTIONS

       -n	Do not add the NEWLINE to the output.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWscpu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       csh(1), echo(1), ksh(1), sh(1), tr(1),  wc(1), attributes(5)

NOTES

       The -n option is a transition aid for BSD applications, and may not be supported in future  releases.

SunOS 5.10							    3 Aug 1994								  echo(1B)