[SOLVED] how to make it work in bash script

ratotopi · 04-04-2013, 12:59 PM

Here is the simple bash script:

#!/bin/bash

echo " Please enter the directory you want to check"
read directory

ls -l $directory

Now when user execute this script I want them to use tab key to auto complete the input like we can in the CLI in linux. How do I do that ? Thank you

shivaa · 04-04-2013, 01:08 PM

Tab key won't work with read, when you will type the directory name. Instead you can pass the directory name as argument with script, as:

Code:

~$ ./myscript /path/to/directory
#!/bin/bash
ls -l $1

ratotopi · 04-04-2013, 04:57 PM

@shivaa thank you for your input
so if I want to write the bash script for
rsync -avn /bin/test/ root@serverIP:/bin/test/
i wrote the below script but its not working.

#!/bin/bash
rsync -avn $1/ root@$2:$3/

and the command line will be
./myscript /bin/test serverIP /bin/test

what am i missing

chrism01 · 04-04-2013, 06:13 PM

1. did that give you an error; if so what exactly?

2. use code tags please
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...do=bbcode#code

3. when specifying cmd line args, don't drop trailing /

Code:

# call like this
 ./myscript /bin/test/ serverIP /bin/test/

# code
# use {} around embedded vars to help parser pick them out
#!/bin/bash
rsync -avn $1 root@${2}:$3

# to see what the parser is doing, add set -xv after bash line
#!/bin/bash
set -xv
rsync -avn $1 root@${2}:$3

Read these
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...tml/index.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

ratotopi · 04-05-2013, 12:09 PM

thank you, I got the result I want without using read

#!/bin/bash
rsync -avn ${1}/ ${2}:${3}/

David the H. · 04-06-2013, 03:58 PM

Please use ***[code][/code]*** tags around your code and data, to preserve the original formatting and to improve readability. Do not use quote tags, bolding, colors, "start/end" lines, or other creative techniques.

You've have almost a hundred posts here. I think you should know this by now.

Now to answer the opening question: In bash, use the -e option in read to tell it to use the readline library. This will give it the full range of editing features, including tab completion.