UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

can anyone tell me why this code doesn't work how its supposed to, its the hangman game but it doesn't play how its supposed to

#!/bin/bash
NoAttempts="0"
livesgiven="5"
LivesRemain=$livesgiven
LettersAttempted=""
wordfile=words
numwords=0
function menu()
{
clear
cat << menu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WELCOME ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE HANGMAN GAME ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~ DO YOU WANT TO PLAY? ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enter your selection (Y/N):
menu
read selection
case $selection in
[Yy]) randomwords clear ;;
[Nn]) echo "Goodbye!"
clear ;;
*) menu;;

esac
}
function randomwords()
{
while read line
do
wordline[$numwords]=$(echo -n "$line")
numwords=$(($numwords +1))
done < $wordfile
numwords=$(($numwords -1))
selection=$(($RANDOM%$numwords+1))
wordpuzzle=$(echo -n ${wordline[$selection]}|tr [a-z] "-")
letter_entry
}
function letter_entry()
{
24,1 Top
lettercount=$(echo -n $wordpuzzle | wc -c )
liveslost=$(($livesgiven-$LivesRemain))
clear
echo "This is a $lettercount letter word."
echo "You have made $NoAttempts attempts, with $LivesRemain lives remaining and have attempted the following letters: $LettersAttempted"
echo "Please enter a letter to guess the puzzle:"
echo "$wordpuzzle"
read letter_new
puzzle=$(echo $wordpuzzle | grep -c "-")
while [ $puzzle -gt 0 ]
do
case $letter_new in
[A-Za-z]) LettersAttempted=$letter_new$LettersAttempted
NoAttempts=$(($NoAttempts + 1))
lettercheck=$(echo ${wordline[$selection]} | grep -c $letter_new)
if [ $lettercheck -eq 0 ]
then
LivesRemain=$(($LivesRemain-1))
if [[ $LiveRemain == 0 ]]
then
clear
echo "Sorry you have no more lives left. You lost! Thank you for playing Hangman."
lostmessage
else
letter_entry
fi
else
wordpuzzle=$(echo ${wordline[$selection]} | tr -c [$LettersAttempted] "-")
letter_entry
fi ;;
*) echo " Please only enter an alphabet"
letter_entry ;;
esac
done
clear
echo "Congratulations!
The word was $(echo $selection). You have successfully completed the word puzzle with $NoAttempts attempts and the lost of $liveslost lives"
echo "Thank you for playing Hangman!"
while true
do
echo "Do you want to play again? (Y/N)?"
read prompt
case "$prompt" in
[Yy]) menu ;;
[Nn]) return 1 ;;
*) echo "Answer Y or N" ;;
esac
done
}
menu

couple of hints:

wrap the code in [ code ] and [ /code ] tags ( without spaces ) so that indentation and stuff
is not lost when posting.

Your "tr" commands need to look like this:

tr "[stuff]" "-"

You must have double quotes around that first argument.

However, this really isn't the problem. The problem is the design.
You need to exchange hyphens for correct letters -- not the other way around.

For this, you will need a much more sophisticated logic for exchanging
correct letters for hyphens.

I recommend commenting out all the "clear" lines.

Then running the thing through bash using:

bash -xvf hangman

Hopefully your screen emulator has a scroll bar and you can watch what
commands get executed.

Good luck.