topic Re: Shell script help needed in Operating System - Linux

Shell script help needed

Debbie Fleith — Tue, 18 Jun 2002 18:29:44 GMT

I pulled a shell script from HP-UX and it doesn't display right under Linux.

What is the equivalent "new line" and "tab" entries for Linux since the backslash entries show explicitly under Linux?

In this sample below, all of my \n and \t's show up.
=========================
echo "\n\n"
echo "\t\tSelect the database that you would like to use:"
echo "\n"
echo "\t\t\t[1] Colorado Springs\n"
echo "\t\t\t[2] Tucson"
=========================

Re: Shell script help needed

Jordan Bean — Tue, 18 Jun 2002 19:23:26 GMT

The echo command is different in bash. Use the -e option to enable special characters.

echo -e "\n\n"

Re: Shell script help needed

Che Cordes — Wed, 19 Jun 2002 12:59:17 GMT

Or use the printf command (formatted print). I believe it is perfered under linux. Your script above will work fine by changing all instances of echo to printf. With printf, however, a carriage return is not implied and therefore you would want to append another newline call after Tuscon or the command prompt will appear on this line.

Che'

Re: Shell script help needed

Dave Pointon — Thu, 29 Aug 2002 12:23:47 GMT

IMHO, the most elegant solution is to use a here document in the script - where all characters between the '!' marks are cat(1)ed to stdout ad verbatim - as follows:

cat << !

Select the database that you would like to use:

[1] Colorado Springs
[2] Tucson
=========================
!

HTH,

DP

Re: Shell script help needed

James Brandvold — Thu, 29 Aug 2002 18:31:46 GMT

The simplest solution is to add:

#!/bin/csh

as the first line of the script. The 'c' shell interprets these characters correctly and you won't have to search for every instance of the echo command.

Re: Shell script help needed

Heiner E. Lennackers — Fri, 30 Aug 2002 11:51:38 GMT

I doubt that this is the simplest soultion or a solution at all. If you do not know the whole script you cannot know, if it would run in a csh (most OS scripts are written in bourne-sh to be compatible with almost everything).

You can try to alias the echo command like:
alias echo="echo -e "
this runs fine in a linux bash.

This is my favorite solution to test foreign scripts.

Heiner