hi everyone

i want to prompt the user to enter a string such as hh

i want code that looks for all the files in the current working directory with the string "hh" and then lists these files

I just started shell scripting last week and i am stuck

help appreciated

Please post where you got stuck.

sorry i mean stuck in this problem..

dont know what the code is

but i found somewhere that the grep can help

I DID IT WOHOOOOOOOOO

no need for help

thanks guys

Ok. Try this:

#!/bin/sh
# set -x
echo "Enter a string to search for:"; read ans
test -n "${ans}" && find . -type f | xargs -ix grep 'x' -e $ans

*If you uncomment the "set -x" you'll get debug mode to show you how it works.

Here's some scripting references:
Introduction to BASH shell scripting: http://www.linuxorbit.com/modules.ph...icle&artid=459
A Quick Introduction to Bash Programming: http://www.geocities.com/tipsforlinu...cles2/043.html
A's to Q's about BASH, the Bourne-Again SHell: http://apodeline.free.fr/FAQ/bashFAQ/bash.html
BASH Programming - Introduction HOW-TO: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html
Advanced Bash Scripting Guide (ABS): http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

Shell script resources:
Heiner's SHELLdorado: http://www.shelldorado.com
Linuxguru's shell scrip resources: http://www.linuxguruz.org/z.php?id=911

Working more productively with bash 2.x (Caliban.org, completion, good stuff): http://www.caliban.org/bash/

*Also search LQ for scripts and tips.

WOW thanks but can u explaim the line of code for me?

read ans
Read user input (from stdin using a Bash builtin command (in bash: help read)) into a variable.

test -n "${ans}"
Test (man test) to see if the variable holds a non-zero* value.
*Not a "real" check, shouldn't replace proper input validation. Beware what you're doing with unsanitized output like this.

&& find . -type f |
Find in the current directory any item of type "file"* and pipe the output to

xargs -ix grep 'x' -e $ans
xargs which uses character "x" to represent the output from "find", which in turn is used by "grep" as the file(s) to search in.
*Find uses "-type d" for dirs, but in essence a dir is a file too...