The preceding code is supposed to ask what the user name is, if it the same as mine, it receives the correlating statement. If not it is supposed to print out "'name' is a nice name".

The problem is that when I enter my name it prints out "that is my name too!" and "is a nice name". It should only perform the first statement; "that is my name too!".

I realize I am as green as you get not to get the syntax on this, but any help would be great. I did all of the work, I am just missing how to break the statements.

Blessings,
Shaun

Modify your case ..

case $name in
matchthis )
do this
;;
* )
do this if nothing matches
;;
esac

Your problem is that the second echo statement is completely unconditional, it exists outside of the case statement completely.

Bah beaten to it, it seems and with a specific example of how to do it.

Ok, read name and case name in, you get that part right? If not, post again.

Now, you've done esac. (case spelled backwards, get it?) So, what does that mean?

I think that you're confusing esac with exit.

This stuff is very confusing at first, but will soon be clear to you. This one is fairly simple, which is why I make that statement.

First, case stuff. End the case stuff. The script is still going. So it's just going to enter $name is a nice name, regardless of what happens, because it's not part of the case--it happens after you've ended the case portion.


Have they covered *) as part of a case statement? They probably did. What do you think that would mean?

Sorry to not give the complete answer, but as you say it's homework, I'm trying to do it more as a lesson. I *think* I've given you enough clues.

Heh, yeah, I knew I was taking too long to type. Ok, so much for the lesson, dxqcanada has explained the *)---if nothing matches.

@dxqcanada, that's not a complaint, it's simply saying that you've given a good explanation.

The important thing is that you understand why dxqcanada's example works.

As I said, it all seems confusing at first, so feel free to post again if the examples and explanations aren't clear. Being able to do this one thing isn't the important thing, it's understanding why it works---then you can use it to write far more complex examples.

I was trying not to give away the exact answer ... but it was difficult not to give away an example.

As Scottro11 stated ...

your code ran through the case section ... then completed that section (esac) ... then the last command is run.

No, I really appreciated your way. I had to actually figure it out, but you pointed me in the right direction. You get the thanks!

No offense to the other girl/guy, I dont want you to give me the fish. I want you to teach me to fish!

I corrected it and placed the code back in the case statement.

#!/bin/bash
echo What is your name?
read name

case $name in
[Ss]haun ) echo That is my name too!;;
$name "is a nice name";;

esac

I concur.

I'd suggest you get the Advanced Bash scripting guide from here.
Great learning tool, and can certainly be used by beginners - the "advanced" is misleading.

There's a lot of good beginner shell scripting books and guides out there. One that I always liked http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/

I actually prefer it, for beginners, to the one that syg00 recommends. It gives more "why".

you should modify your script using this statement


case $name in
matchthis )
do this
;;
* )
do this if nothing matches
;;
esac






NIRAJ KUMAR SINHA
RHCE(Redhat Certified Engineer)
LINUX ADMINISTRATOR