Select (loop) or command not working in shell-script
- by user208098
I've been tinkering with Linux and Unix for years but still a novice in my mind and recently find myself trying to be more pro with it as I work in IT. So with that notion I'm studying shell scripting.
I've hit a snag in ubuntu using the latest version 13.10 Saucy. When I use the select command in a sh script it doesn't work, depending on how I format the command it will either return Unexpected "do" or Unexpected "done". See the following two examples:
This section of code produces an unexpected "do" error:
#/bin/bash
PS3='Please enter your choice'
select opt in option1 option2 option3 quit
do
case $opt in
"option1")
echo "you chose choice 1" ;;
"option2")
echo "you chose choice 2" ;;
"option3")
echo "you chose choice 3" ;;
"quit")
break ;;
*) echo invalid option ;;
esac
done
This section of code produces an unexpected "done" error.
#/bin/bash
PS3='Please enter your choice'
select opt in option1 option2 option3 quit ; do
case $opt in
"Option1")
echo "you chose choice 1" ;;
"Option2")
echo "you chose choice 2" ;;
"Option3")
echo "you chose choice 3" ;;
"quit")
break ;;
*) echo invalid option ;;
esac
done
When I enter these parameters into the command line interactively or manually I get the desired result which is a list of choices to choose from. However when executed from a script I get the before mentioned errors. Also a side note I have tried this in Fedora as a script and it worked perfectly so my question is why isn't it working in Ubuntu, is this a difference between RHL and Debian? Or is it a bug in the latest version of Ubuntu?
Thanks in advance for any help!
KG
