Shell Programming and Scripting

For an assignment i have to create a CSH menu that requires a password in order to login, and then does all this other stuff.

I am really stumped on the password part though here is the question

1) ask for a password from the user.
If the password is not correct, the system will exit
with an appropriate error message.

The program password file must be called "PASSWORD" in the current directory. The password will be in this file as a single newline-terminated word. For testing purposes, I will assume that this file will be part of your tgz submission. It also only requires the first 32 characters for varification.

Originally i had

Code:

echo "please enter the password: "
set password = $<

then a simple IF statement

Code:

if ( $password != whatever is in the file ) then
echo "password is incorrect"
exit

The problem is, i have no idea how to read from the PASSWORD file that we have to create.

I dont expect an answer to this specific problem, as i would much rather make it on my own, but any help regarding how to take text from a file to validate, and also how to just take the first 32 characters would be wonderful..

Cheers

---------- Post updated at 04:23 AM ---------- Previous update was at 04:10 AM ----------

Update:

I am now able to read from the file using this

Code:

echo "enter password"
stty -echo
set password = $<
stty echo
echo ""

set systemPassword = `cut -c 1-32 PASSWORD`

if ( $password != $systemPassword ) then
error

only problem is, my cutting of the first 32 characters doesnt work...

Code:

echo "enter password"
systemPassword = $(cut -c 1-32 PASSWORD)
stty -echo
set password = $<
stty echo
echo ""
if ( $password != $systemPassword ) then
error

Thanks man, it all seems to work now.

I do have a problem with updating the password though.
my code (within a case statement):

Code:

case passwd
  echo "enter old password"
  set pass = $<
    if ( $pass != $systemPassword ) then
      echo "password does not match"
   else
      echo "enter new password"
      set newPass = $<
      $newPass >PASSWORD
   endif
breaksw

I keep getting an error though
if i enter new password as "hello"
i get "hello: command not found."

$newPass is Variable,so you will get "command not found"

Code:

case passwd
  echo "enter old password"
  set pass = $<
    if ( $pass != $systemPassword ) then
      echo "password does not match"
   else
      echo "enter new password"
      set newPass = $<
      echo "$newPass" >PASSWORD
   endif
breaksw