help
ey.. i just started learning shell scripting in Mandrake linux... I have a program that will have to accept arguments and do validations if the arguments entered are containing characters other than numeric characters... I was able to detect alphabetic characters and symbols like , + - . etc.... and error messages are displayed. But when arguments containing symbols like * ) [ & ( and other characters which have special meanings, my script is not able to trap them and treat as ordinary strings that are part of my arguments...
to explain more clearly.. here's an example..
# ./sample.sh a677 7 678
--->>> here, a message indicating that the first argument contains a character is displayed. This one works correctly.
# ./sample.sh 344 56& 557
---->>> here's the prob... this time,,, it stops when it reaches the symbol & and displays a message from bash... If I use single ( or ), an error message from bash also displays.
Can anyone help me with this?