bash programming

bulliver · 04-05-2003, 05:00 PM

Hello, I am trying to teach myself shell programming so I am scripting a really cheesy addressbook sort of thing. I am having problems with for loops and arrays however.

In particular, I am having problems with the function that lists all contacts. The script sources a file with the contacts in it which looks like:

Code:

contact[1]=Darren
Darren[1]="Darren Kirby"
Darren[2]="123 fake address way"
Darren[3]="123 456 7890"
Darren[4]="loser@life.com"
Darren[5]="placeholder for notes"

contact[2]=Joe
Joe[1]="Joe Blow"
Joe[2]="234 another fake rd"
Joe[3]="250 476 7773"
Joe[4]="loser@death.com"
Joe[5]="this is a note"

My function that adds the contacts adds them perfectly in this format, and a little loop adds 1 to each index of the "contact" array, but I can't get it to display them properly. Here's the relevant bit of the function:

Code:

list_contacts() {
	if [ ! -e ~/.addbookdata ] # check for first time user
	then
		echo "There are no contacts listed"
		touch ~/.addbookdata
		echo "Contact data file has been created"
		echo "You may now add contacts"
		main_menu
	else
		source ~/.addbookdata
		echo "All contacts:"
		for index in 1 2 3 4 5
		do
			echo "${contact[index]}"
		done
		echo
	fi
	}

I am having problems with the echo statement, it works fine when I put in the actual name ie: "echo "$darren[index]" but what I need to have it do is cycle through all the contacts ie: contact[1], contact[2], etc...and cycle through the five contact indices for each contact which hold the actual address info.

What do I need to do here? Nested for loop? Any ideas? Even a bit of psuedo code might help me through this block...

Thanks

bulliver · 04-05-2003, 06:03 PM

Ok, I think I can sort this out if I can figure out how to get variable variables to work.

ie: say I have something like echo "$var1[var2]", so I would need to get var1 and var2 to make up one variable, is this possible? I have tried command substitution and all sorts of quoting but no fruit.

Also, I am having problems getting vars to resolve properly.
More concrete example:

Code:

mail_me() {
	echo "Please choose a contact to mail:"
	read mailee
	maileeadd=`echo $mailee[4]`
	source ~/.addbookdata
	echo "${maileeadd}"
	}

In this bit of code you would enter who you want to email (darren) then try to get the email address which is darren[4] in the array, but the echo statement resolves literally to "darren[4]" instead of the address as it should. Is this something to do with variable scope? Any help appreciated...

unSpawn · 04-05-2003, 09:30 PM

Here's what I could come up with. I'd start with alphabetical indexes, good for mgmnt and expansion, eventually (when you've got lotsa entries) you *will* want to be selective *which* arrays to load. Hope it's kinda self explainatory really, else execute as "sh -x <script>".

#!/bin/bash
A=( contact666 )
D=( contact0 )
H=( contact1 )
contact1=( "Hammet, Kirk" "row 5, grave 3" "none" "corpse@graveyard.org" "" )
contact0=( "Darren Kirby" "123 fake address way" "123 456 7890" "loser@life.com" "placeholder for notes" )
contact666=( "Astaroth" "1 Kinda warm place" "none" "billg@hotmail.com" "Definately on medication" )

mail_me() { echo "Please choose a contact to mail:"; read mailee
for contact in $(eval echo \${${mailee:0:1}[@]}); do eval echo \$${contact[0]} | grep -qe "${mailee}"
case $? in 0) p=$(eval echo \${$contact[0]}); m=$(eval echo \${$contact[3]});; esac; done
printf "%s${p:=${mailee}} has addr ${m:="which seems totally bogoid."}\n"
}

mail_me
# Arrays start counting from zero up btw.