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BASH: Checking Users Input To File

ok im sorta stuck on this,

The user enters a car model and it has to check it in a text file in the current directory. If the car model is not in the file, user has to enter another model

This is what i have so far

Code:

read -p "Enter a car model: " car1

grep -w $car1=$(cat carMakes.txt)

test $? = 0 && echo "Car not found, try again please"

it executes but i get a long list saying, the following

Code:

grep: Honda No such file or directory

Code:

tmp$ cat carMakes.txt

Honda

Ford

Mercury

Nissan

BMW

tmp$ grep -w 'Honda'=$(cat carMakes.txt)

grep: Ford: No such file or directory

grep: Mercury: No such file or directory

grep: Nissan: No such file or directory

grep: BMW: No such file or directory

I see a number of problems here, not the least of which are that grep and test need to burn in a fire.

I think the syntax of your grep is not correct. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that.
Oh while I'm at it, this is an egregious UUOC. The final argument to grep should be a list of files to be searched with your regular expression. Those files don't exist.
In your test command you are testing for string equality. Don't you want to test for numerical equality (ie with -eq instead of =)?

Well you will need to do more to provide an error message, but maybe this will get you started:

Code:

car1='nocar'



until grep -q $car1 car_file

do

    read -p "Please enter a car model: " car1

done



echo "$car1 is in the file"