User input not reading correctly in bash

Question

I have data that's held in one of three directories and I wanted to create a loop that would allow a user to easily access the data.

I'm trying to make this loop work so that if someone enters 1-3 it reads the number and changes the variable timePeriod to either "daily", "bars10s", or "bars100ms". When I echo the timeCheck and timePeriod variables when running the code to see if they're ok, the timeCheck always comes back right, but the timePeriod reads "daily" no matter what the timeCheck variable reads as. I'm pretty new to bash, so any help would be appreciated.

#!/bin/bash

echo 

timePeriod=""
timeCheck=0

read -p "Time Period for fac to run(press 1 for daily, 2 for 10 sec 
intervals, 3 for 100ms intervals): " -e -i "$timeCheck" timeCheck

if [ $TimeCheck==1 ] ; then
    timePeriod="daily"
elif [ $TimeCheck==2 ] ; then
    timePeriod="bars10s"    
elif [ $TimeCheck==3 ] ; then
    timePeriod="bars100ms"
else
    echo "Not Valid Time Period. Please re-try."
fi


echo $timeCheck
echo $timePeriod

clt60 · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-03 14:02:53Z

3

You can use select - for the menus like this.

PS3="Select what you want>"
select answer in "Daily period" "10 sec period" "100 ms" "exit program"
do
case "$REPLY" in
    1) timePeriod="daily" ; break;;
    2) timePeriod="10s" ; break;;
    3) timePeriod="100ms" ; break;;
    4) exit ;;
esac
done

echo "$timePeriod"

answered May 3, 2013 at 14:02

clt60

64.3k17 gold badges114 silver badges206 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Eric Over a year ago

thanks again for this select menu idea. It's working much better than what I was doing before.

clt60 Over a year ago

I'm happy to help. Enjoy :)

cdarke · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-03 13:55:31Z

2

You need to put spaces around conditions and boolean operators:

if [ $TimeCheck == 1 ] ; then

However, since it is an arithmetic test, it might be better doing:

if (( $TimeCheck==1 )) ; then

spaces are less important with arithmetic checks.

answered May 3, 2013 at 13:55

cdarke

44.8k8 gold badges85 silver badges86 bronze badges

3 Comments

Kent Over a year ago

if his bash supports [[ .. ]], I would recommend to use that.

chepner Over a year ago

If [[ is supported, it's likely that (( is supported as well, which is preferable if you know you are doing arithmetic.

cdarke Over a year ago

@Kent: my general rule is: use [[ .. ]] for pattern matching, (( .. )) for arithmetic comparisons, and [ .. ] only when you want to play tricks.

Matthias · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-03 14:01:34Z

2

I see two errors:

You need spaces in your if clause
You use sometimes caps and somstimes not

The following is working:

#!/bin/bash

echo

timePeriod=""
timeCheck=0

read -p "Time Period for fac to run(press 1 for daily, 2 for 10 sec
intervals, 3 for 100ms intervals): " -e -i "$timeCheck" timeCheck

if [ $timeCheck == 1 ] ; then
    timePeriod="daily"
elif [ $timeCheck == 2 ] ; then
    timePeriod="bars10s"
elif [ $timeCheck == 3 ] ; then
    timePeriod="bars100ms"
else
    echo "Not Valid Time Period. Please re-try."
fi

echo $timeCheck
echo $timePeriod

answered May 3, 2013 at 14:01

Matthias

8,2402 gold badges30 silver badges56 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

User input not reading correctly in bash

3 Answers 3

2 Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

2 Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related