Shell scripting problems

[theChauvinist]

I've just started learning shell scripting, and am writing a script which installs all the programs I regularly use (after asking for the users consent), for use on fresh installs. So far I've only included GCC and Firefox.

However, at the moment it doesn't work how I want it to; it gives the spaces to type y or n before it actually asks the question. This is probably a dumb question, but hey, I've never programmed before :-) .



#!/bin/bash

function aptget
{
for app in gcc mozilla-firefox; do
echo "Do you wish to install/update $app? [y/n]"
read answer
if [ "$answer" = "y" ]; then
apt-get install $app
else
echo "you have chosen not to install $app"
fi
done
}

echo $(aptget)

[Leif]

Taking it out of the function works :

for app in gcc mozilla-firefox;
do
echo -n "Do you wish to install/update $app? [y/n]";
read answer
if [ "$answer" = "y" ]; then
apt-get install $app
else
echo "you have chosen not to install $app"
fi
done

[theChauvinist]

Thanks a lot :grin: . Thought it'd be something simple.

Do you know why it doesn't work as a function? (just out of curiosity)

[Leif]

No idea. I don't really do bash much, but I was just interested so I played around with it.

[mendicant]

What's the echo for? This works fine, except for the echo. Just change it to aptget.
My output is:


% source /tmp/blah
Do you wish to install/update gcc? [y/n]
y
would have done: apt-get install gcc
Do you wish to install/update mozilla-firefox? [y/n]
y
would have done: apt-get install mozilla-firefox

with the script:

cat /tmp/blah

#!/bin/bash

function aptget
{
for app in gcc mozilla-firefox; do
echo "Do you wish to install/update $app? [y/n]"
read answer
if [ "$answer" = "y" ]; then
echo "would have done: apt-get install $app"
else
echo "you have chosen not to install $app"
fi
done
}

aptget

[mendicant]

You might also like "echo -n" to get rid of the newlines.

[theChauvinist]

Oh right, thanks, I'm not too sure why I put that echo there to be honest, I guess for some reason I thought you were meant to :? .

I'll try that as soon as I can get back into Ubuntu.

Cheers!