UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm very new to Unix and know the simplest of its commands. I am trying to write a script file that has a menu with the following options showing:

1) Display all files in a user's home directory.
2) Welcome yourself to the program
3) Display System Information
4) Exit to Windows

I am able to get the script file to at least show this when it is run. And I have a prompt that asks the user to make a selection. After that, I'm completely lost.

Option 1 is supposed to display all files in a user's home directory. It should allow a user to look up any user's home directory, provided they enter the correct user name. I have to put in a safeguard that if the user does not enter a name then their home directory is displayed.

Option 2 will ask a user to enter his or her name and will produce a welcome message with the user's name.

Here is the code that I have so far:


#! /bin/csh
# This is the UNIX menu script file that is for the second part of the
# take-home final.

cat <<ENDINPUT

CISS 125
Menu of Options

1. Display all files in a user's home directory
2. Welcome yourself to the program
3. Display System Information
4. Exit back to Windows

ENDINPUT
echo Please enter your choice:
read option

case $option
1.

I'm completely lost and would appreciate any help that can be offered. Thank you.

What does this do?

This format of a case statement is

Code:

case "$variable" in
option1 )
          do-something
          ;;
option2 )
          do-something-else
          ;;
* )
          catch-all-case
          ;;
esac

Porter, thanks for the info. However, I don't understand how when a person presses "1", "2", etc. that it will execute the proper command. In your post, does "option1" refer to the person pressing "1" for the menu?

the "labels" are regular expressions that will match with the variable.

Code:

read option
case "$option" in
1 )
     ls -l
     ;;
2 ) 
     echo Welcome
     ;;
3 )
     uname -a
     ;;
4 )
     exit
     ;;
* )
     echo "Use 1, 2, 3 or 4"
     ;;
esac

Porter,

I'm starting to understand this a little better. In option 1, I, or whoever is using the program, has to enter a user's name and have their home directory displayed. If no user name is entered, then the home directory of the person using the program is to be displayed. How would that be coded?

You know how to read a variable from the prompt so that gives you the username.

The tricky part is converting a username to a home directory.

Assuming OTHER is the name of the user...

Code:

eval OTHERHOME=`echo ~$OTHER`

I'm sure you can handle the directory listing.

!/bin/ksh
#simlpmenu, A very simple menu

# amenu() defines a function to display a simple menu
amenu () {
# clear the screen
clear
echo `date`
echo
echo "\t\t\tSystem Administrator Menu"
echo
echo "\t\tPlease Select:"
echo
echo "\t\t\t 1. Ping Clients"
echo "\t\t\t 2. Reboot Clients"
echo "\t\t\t 3. Shutdown Clients"
echo "\t\t\t 4. Collect System Information"
echo "\t\t\t"
echo "\t\t\t 0. Exit"
echo Select by pressing a number and then ENTER ;
}

this is what i use