how to capture a string of characters with ksh

[MAD_2]

Using ksh, how can I capture a string of characters (separated by spaces) typed by a user.

Something like:

echo "Type your notes:\n"
CAPTURE NOTES

There will be 60 characters or less typed by the user.

I am attempting to use the string of characters to be inserted into a table afterwards by using PL/SQL.

[Sachin Patel · Accepted solution]

I guess it is pretty simple


rubens{sachin}% cat test
#!/bin/ksh
read ans
echo $ans

rubens{sachin}% ./test
this is test
this is test
rubens{sachin}%

Sachin

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Adam:

# echo "Enter your message"
# read MSG
# echo "You wrote: '${MSG}'"

Regards!

...JRF...

[MAD_2]

Thanks everyone... That's what I am using to record the string but I believe I must be doing something wrong in the PL because only the first character before the space is being recorded.

I am going to double check all my steps.

[curt larson_1]

if it is just a single line of input, use the read built-in.

read
just by itself will put the input in to the default variable REPLY

read varName
will put the input into the variable varName

a trailing \ at the end a line causes the line to be continued onto the next line. ksh will remove both the \ and newline.

[John Poff]

Hi,

The previous suggestions were great, but you might want to add a typeset declaration of your variable so that it will be limited to a certain size. Using JRF's example,

typeset -L60 ans

will limit the ans variable to 60 characters, left justified, with leading blanks removed and trailing blanks added to make it 60 characters.

JP

[MAD_2]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Very strange though, when I pass the value of the string to the PL/SQL code it only records the first character before the space, everything else is not recorded.

In the shell script:
============================
echo "Please include your comments below (60 char max):\n"

read NOTES

sqlplus -s $LOGIN @zipadd_tst.pl $ZIP $SERVICE $BRANCH $USER '${NO
TES}'
============================

At the read, the user inputs something like "This is a test"

But when reviewing the table, the only value recorded is "This"

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again) Adam:

Surround your variable with double-quotes:

# ... "${NOTES}"

Regards!

...JRF...

[John Poff]

Hi,

Your sqlplus statement is seeing the $NOTES variable as more parameters and it just getting the first value. Try quoting the $NOTES variable like this:

sqlplus -s $LOGIN @zipadd_tst.pl $ZIP $SERVICE $BRANCH $USER \"${NOTES}\"

JP

[MAD_2]

Right on the nail, James and John... Thanks a bunch!

[MAD_2]

John (or anyone who may know the answer), another quick question for you regarding my case.

My main problem is resolved, how can I make typeset not leave any trailing spaces, I don't care for additional dead space. I only want recorded what is typed, nothing else, even if I limit it to 60 characters.

Thanks!

[Sachin Patel]

Adam
How about if you use sed to remove any leading and trailing white space

sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'

Sachin

[MAD_2]

Sachin, I do not think that would be practical here, because the strings go into a variable that are loaded directly into a table, so I do not think sed would be of much use here (unless I am not aware how sed can be used in this case). The only way I can think of using sed in your example is by first filterid the contents of the variable into a temp file and then loading from there, but that is adding more steps.

As of right now, I have not set limitis to the lenght of the string, so whatever characteres are typed, that's the only thing that is loaded (typeset is not used), just what I want, but as John has said, the user may type beyond the screen's width (not really recommended) and other limitations. But if I was to set limits with typeset (60 characters is practical, furthermore is the lenght of the field, a varchar2(60)), I don't want trailing spaces, I still only want what is typed to be loaded on the field.

[John Poff]

Hi again,

The typeset functions in ksh [and posix sh] pad the field with trailing spaces. There isn't any option for typeset to tell it to strip out the spaces or not pad the field.

You could use Sachin's suggestion with sed to strip off the trailing spaces. The Korn shell is nice, but the deeper you get into trying to solve problems like this, the closer you get to needing Perl.

JP

[MAD_2]

I think I will look into resolving the padding with dead space within the PL/SQL code instead of trying to resolve it within the shell script. It appears it will be easier to handle it from there.
Thanks!

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Adam,
It is very simple

#!/bin/sh

typeset -L10 ans
read ans

echo "TTT${ans}TTT"

ans2=`echo ${ans} | sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'`

echo "TTT${ans2}TTT"

And when I run this script

hpc-ps3# ./ttt
12345678
TTT12345678 TTT (output without truncat)
TTT12345678TTT (after using sed)

Sachin

[MAD_2]

Great Sachin, I think I can use this. All my major problems are now fixed, everything else is just semantics.