Re: bash shell script questions
On Fri, 09 Jan 1998 23:01:54 +0100, "Rob S. Wolfram" wrote:
> David Stern wrote:
>>[..]
> news://comp.unix.shell
I know now.
> > 1.) How do I insert a newline character in a "double-quoted" string?
> If you mean "when using bash's built-in echo command", use
> echo -e "Test\nMoreText"
I'll use that in the future.
> > 2.) What is a good method to reassign variables interactively?
> read VAR
Got it, thanks.
> > #!/bin/sh
> You should use '#!/bin/bash' really, because now sh is just a link
> to bash, but you are not guaranteed that in a future version it will
> be another shell, or that bash _will_ act more (dumb) Bourne like in
> the future when called as 'sh' (I for one would appreciate it).
Noted. However I thought that /bin/sh was more "un*x-compatible", thus
more extensible across other platforms where bash may not be available,
therefore making /bin/sh preferred. True?/Not true?
(When, if ever, do you think use of /bin/sh is appropriate?)
> > echo "" ; echo "David's BackupUtility v. 0.1." ; echo "" ;
> > while [ $option -ne 7 ]
> Do surround vars in a test in double quotes, to protect the empty
> string, like in: while [ "$option" -ne 7 ]
Noted. Thankyou very much.
> > echo " Copy method is $copymethod "
> > ; echo "" ;
> ^ I suppose this belongs to the last line?
I set email linewrap to 72, but allowed a few more in my code.
> > read option
> > case $option in
> > 1)
> > echo " Change source list."
> > echo " How do I interactively reassign \$dbu_list ?" ; echo "" ;
> read dbu_list
> Or maybe you want to use another var, test its validity and eventually
> reassign your old one with $SECONDVAR ?
Exactly. Immediately following the original post, a number of thoughts
I was having formed ideas, which dawned some realizations and I haven't
really mapped out where I want to take this, because some of my ideas
will require more error handling than I think is suited for a bash
script. Fortunately, I got it to work and added a few of my ideas, so
it works well enough to pass proof test, which allows me to use it a
little and see how I'd like it to develop.
> Politically biassed advice: man cpio
Although I'm not intimate with cpio yet, that's the agenda. In any
event, my default copy method (safecopy2) implements cpio. I've
intentionally made this modular so I don't have do any deathly hacking
should I decide to make any changes. Thanks to you all, it works
pretty well. :-)
I more or less figure this is amateur code, but it works pretty well,
so if anyone wants to use or mangle it, feel free to have a go at it.
:-)
<<< message/external-body; name="/home/share/bin/safecopy2"; access-type=LOCAL-FILE; site="localhost.localdomain": Unrecognized >>>
<<< message/external-body; name="/home/share/bin/dbu"; access-type=LOCAL-FILE; site="localhost.localdomain": Unrecognized >>>
David Stern
kotsya@u.washington.edu
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~kotsya/
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