Shell Programming and Scripting

Code:

function press_1
{
Number=
echo -n "Title : "
read number
if [ "$number" = grep "$number" Hello1 ]; -- line 12
 then
echo  "smelly"
else 
echo "already exist"
fi  
}

For this coding, what i have done is to enter a title. then in line 12 , i did a if statement which is suppose to search the text file Hello1 , and if the title appears before, it will output the word "smelly". when i tried running it, i got back an error message

./Bookshop: line 12: [: too many arguments

what does this mean? and how can i go about solving it?

You should use something like:

Code:

if [ "$number" = "$(grep "$number" Hello1)" ]
then

Which would work is Hello1 is a file that contains one number/title per line,

or just:

Code:

if grep -q "$number" Hello1
then

okay , when i tried the 2nd coding, it still states the same error.

For Code 1

Code:

#!/bin/bash
selection=
echo "title " 
read number
if [ "$number"  =  "$(grep "$number" Hello1)" ] ; then
echo "helo"
fi

For the first coding , i tried adding the all the signs and brackets, but it does not seem to work. and the "grep" color turns pink. why is that? the error i got this time was :
Command not found in line

---------- Post updated at 11:20 PM ---------- Previous update was at 11:16 PM ----------

Actually, i got it. forgot to take out the brackets when trying the first coding. thanks alot! nice to know there are people out here to help beginners like me.