Bash script help

Hi All

trying to learn a bit of bash scripting and could do with some help.

I have a script (below) that lists the contents of a folder and allows you to choose a number to delete the item. What I would like to do is display as line 1 the option to exit incase would don't want to make a choice.

I am not sure how to added this and what command I would need and where so any help here would be great, thanks

#!/bin/bash

echo "This script can make can delete any file or folder displayed below"
echo "Enter the number of the folder you wish to delete:"

select FILENAME in /usr/src/temp/*;
do
echo "You picked $FILENAME ($REPLY), This folder is now deleted"
rm -rf "$FILENAME"
done

Look in your bash tutorial for "read" and see how you can fit it in your script. Come back to us if you have further issues.

Try this:

select FILENAME in ' NEITHER ' /usr/src/temp/*;
do
    if [ "$REPLY" != ' NEITHER ' ]; then
    ...
    fi
done

I'd recommend that you learn about bash scripting some other way than deleting files.

Because if you make a mistake, you can make the mistake of deleting the incorrect files. And since you only have a notification not a confirmation step, then you'll now the bad thing happened, but be powerless to say "N" to your script.

"set -xv" is very powerful for debugging. It enables debugging and verbose output to the command prompt when you run your script.

I have a bash blog link in my signature. There are a number of recommendations in there for writing and debugging scripts.

I'd also recommend you use proper grammar in the outputs of your scripts.

The user can press ctrl-C

I think there is a bug in post#3; must be either
[ "$FILENAME" != " NEITHER " ] or
[ "$REPLY" != 1 ]

The following works only with $FILENAME by means of a case-esac

select FILENAME in EXIT /usr/src/temp/*
do
  case $FILENAME in
  (EXIT) break
  ;;
  ("") echo "illegal choice"
  ;;
  (*)
    echo "You picked $FILENAME ($REPLY), This folder is now deleted"
    rm -rf "<$FILENAME>"
  esac
done