Shell Programming and Scripting

hi there,
i just need a help handling the output of filespec in case has been picked

im writing a bash script similar to the command ls,
and ive done everything except handing the filespec which i spent more than 3 hrs and i coundn't figure out or find any on the net.

all what i need is when
*)
do the actual output of ls -l * that displays on command line.

Thanks all

If you run myscript * the * will be replaced by the shell before running your script, so the parameters your script will actually see will be as if the script had been run using myscript file1 file2 file3 ....

You can only avoid this by turning off the shell's globbing features, or by protecting the parameters using quotes.

Similarly *) has special meaning in case statement; it matches any sequence of any character. Try '*') instead.

Just as Annihilannic said.

I am sorry and don't want to offend, but why rewrite ls as a shell script? If it's a kind experimenting with parameters or handling files, maybe some other mechansim might be more suitable.
Ie. maybe we can suggest an alternative for your script if you describe what you try to do.
I know you didn't ask for - just a suggestion.

Thanks for the help guys, actually im writing a script that does the same functions as ls command, i wrote a script that does -l option and -f to create a file and -d to create a directory, but i wasnt able to handle filespec with it, like handling * to make my script do the same as ls *
Thanks again.

What if someone ran your script using scriptname *.dat? You couldn't write case statements to handle all those possibilities... you should leave it to the shell to look after glob expansion, that's its job.

Consider using getopts or similar to process the command-line parameters. It can differentiate between parameters that are filenames, and those that are switches (i.e. beginning with "-") and whether or not those switches have additional non-filename parameters that follow them.

im just beginner with bash,
so i totally agree with you about what you said i wont be able to handle all filespec.

what do u suggest for me to handle at least outputting or listing the directory information, i.e how to make my script handle outputting just the output of ls *

i've tried making output of * as an array, but also i wasn't able to exceed my point.

Show us the code and we may understand better what you're trying to achieve.