5 
read -r -p "put an option: " option
echo $option

this works but shellcheck gives me:

In POSIX sh, read -p is undefined.

How to get user input with a prompt into a variable in a posix compliant way?

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You could use read without -p:

printf "put an option: " >&2
read -r option
printf '%s\n' "$option"
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  • needs to call printf or echo? I mean, can't this be handled by read only? thanks Commented May 20, 2021 at 20:55
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    @testoflow It depends. Are you writing a portable script, meant to run in any POSIX shell, or are you targeting a specific shell? shellcheck gives you that warning when you target sh, but common implementations (e.g. dash, busybox ash) actually support prompting with read -p. It won't work, however, in zsh and, I think, in ksh88 and derivatives (and in the original Bourne shell). Commented May 20, 2021 at 21:10
  • @testoflow: You could use echo but printf is better than echo. As fra-san mentioned many, if not most systems would accept -p but if you want to be pure POSIX sh you can't use it. If you know it wont be an issue you can ignore certain shellcheck rules. Commented May 20, 2021 at 23:52

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