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A widely available method to get user input at a shell prompt is the read command. Here is a demonstration:

while true; do read -p "Do you wish to install this program? " yn case $yn in [Yy]* ) make install; break;; [Nn]* ) exit;; * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";; esac done 

Another method, pointed out by Steven Huwig, is Bash's select command. Here is the same example using select:

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select yn in "Yes" "No"; do case $yn in Yes ) make install; break;; No ) exit;; esac done 

With select you don't need to sanitize the input – it displays the available choices, and you type a number corresponding to your choice. It also loops automatically, so there's no need for a while true loop to retry if they give invalid input.

The above example accepts only numeric responses. select is very strict in this regard. Below is a variation of select that is more forgiving (falling back to the user's raw $REPLY in the event that select rejects their non-numeric response):

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select strictreply in "Yes" "No"; do relaxedreply=${strictreply:-$REPLY} case $relaxedreply in Yes | yes | y ) make install; break;; No | no | n ) exit;; esac done 

Also, Léa Gris demonstrated a way to make the request language agnostic in her answer. Adapting my first example to better serve multiple languages might look like this:

set -- $(locale LC_MESSAGES) yesexpr="$1"; noexpr="$2"; yesword="$3"; noword="$4" while true; do read -p "Install (${yesword} / ${noword})? " yn if [[ "$yn" =~ $yesexpr ]]; then make install; exit; fi if [[ "$yn" =~ $noexpr ]]; then exit; fi echo "Answer ${yesword} / ${noword}." done 

Obviously other communication strings remain untranslated here (Install, Answer) which would need to be addressed in a more fully completed translation, but even a partial translation would be helpful in many cases.

Finally, please check out the excellent answer by F. Hauri.

A widely available method to get user input at a shell prompt is the read command. Here is a demonstration:

while true; do read -p "Do you wish to install this program? " yn case $yn in [Yy]* ) make install; break;; [Nn]* ) exit;; * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";; esac done 

Another method, pointed out by Steven Huwig, is Bash's select command. Here is the same example using select:

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select yn in "Yes" "No"; do case $yn in Yes ) make install; break;; No ) exit;; esac done 

With select you don't need to sanitize the input – it displays the available choices, and you type a number corresponding to your choice. It also loops automatically, so there's no need for a while true loop to retry if they give invalid input. If you want to allow more flexible input (accepting the words of the options, rather than just their number), you can alter it like this:

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select strictreply in "Yes" "No"; do relaxedreply=${strictreply:-$REPLY} case $relaxedreply in Yes | yes | y ) make install; break;; No | no | n ) exit;; esac done 

Also, Léa Gris demonstrated a way to make the request language agnostic in her answer. Adapting my first example to better serve multiple languages might look like this:

set -- $(locale LC_MESSAGES) yesexpr="$1"; noexpr="$2"; yesword="$3"; noword="$4" while true; do read -p "Install (${yesword} / ${noword})? " yn if [[ "$yn" =~ $yesexpr ]]; then make install; exit; fi if [[ "$yn" =~ $noexpr ]]; then exit; fi echo "Answer ${yesword} / ${noword}." done 

Obviously other communication strings remain untranslated here (Install, Answer) which would need to be addressed in a more fully completed translation, but even a partial translation would be helpful in many cases.

Finally, please check out the excellent answer by F. Hauri.

A widely available method to get user input at a shell prompt is the read command. Here is a demonstration:

while true; do read -p "Do you wish to install this program? " yn case $yn in [Yy]* ) make install; break;; [Nn]* ) exit;; * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";; esac done 

Another method, pointed out by Steven Huwig, is Bash's select command. Here is the same example using select:

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select yn in "Yes" "No"; do case $yn in Yes ) make install; break;; No ) exit;; esac done 

With select you don't need to sanitize the input – it displays the available choices, and you type a number corresponding to your choice. It also loops automatically, so there's no need for a while true loop to retry if they give invalid input.

Also, Léa Gris demonstrated a way to make the request language agnostic in her answer. Adapting my first example to better serve multiple languages might look like this:

set -- $(locale LC_MESSAGES) yesexpr="$1"; noexpr="$2"; yesword="$3"; noword="$4" while true; do read -p "Install (${yesword} / ${noword})? " yn if [[ "$yn" =~ $yesexpr ]]; then make install; exit; fi if [[ "$yn" =~ $noexpr ]]; then exit; fi echo "Answer ${yesword} / ${noword}." done 

Obviously other communication strings remain untranslated here (Install, Answer) which would need to be addressed in a more fully completed translation, but even a partial translation would be helpful in many cases.

Finally, please check out the excellent answer by F. Hauri.

A widely available method to get user input at a shell prompt is the read command. Here is a demonstration:

while true; do read -p "Do you wish to install this program? " yn case $yn in [Yy]* ) make install; break;; [Nn]* ) exit;; * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";; esac done 

Another method, pointed out by Steven Huwig, is Bash's select command. Here is the same example using select:

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select yn in "Yes" "No"; do case $yn in Yes ) make install; break;; No ) exit;; esac done 

With select you don't need to sanitize the input – it displays the available choices, and you type a number corresponding to your choice. It also loops automatically, so there's no need for a while true loop to retry if they give invalid input.

The above example accepts only numeric responses. select is very strict in this regard. Below is a variation of select that is more forgiving (falling back to the user's raw $REPLY in the event that select rejects their non-numeric response):

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select strictreply in "Yes" "No"; do relaxedreply=${strictreply:-$REPLY} case $relaxedreply in Yes | yes | y ) make install; break;; No | no | n ) exit;; esac done 

Also, Léa Gris demonstrated a way to make the request language agnostic in her answer. Adapting my first example to better serve multiple languages might look like this:

set -- $(locale LC_MESSAGES) yesexpr="$1"; noexpr="$2"; yesword="$3"; noword="$4" while true; do read -p "Install (${yesword} / ${noword})? " yn if [[ "$yn" =~ $yesexpr ]]; then make install; exit; fi if [[ "$yn" =~ $noexpr ]]; then exit; fi echo "Answer ${yesword} / ${noword}." done 

Obviously other communication strings remain untranslated here (Install, Answer) which would need to be addressed in a more fully completed translation, but even a partial translation would be helpful in many cases.

Finally, please check out the excellent answer by F. Hauri.

The simplest and most widely available method to get user input at a shell prompt is the read command. The best way to illustrate its use is a simple demonstration:

while true; do read -p "Do you wish to install this program? " yn case $yn in [Yy]* ) make install; break;; [Nn]* ) exit;; * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";; esac done 

Another method, pointed out by Steven Huwig, is Bash's select command. Here is the same example using select:

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select yn in "Yes" "No"; do case $yn in Yes ) make install; break;; No ) exit;; esac done 

With select you don't need to sanitize the input – it displays the available choices, and you type a number corresponding to your choice. It also loops automatically, so there's no need for a while true loop to retry if they give invalid input.

Also, Léa Gris demonstrated a way to make the request language agnostic in her answer. Adapting my first example to better serve multiple languages might look like this:

set -- $(locale LC_MESSAGES) yesexpr="$1"; noexpr="$2"; yesword="$3"; noword="$4" while true; do read -p "Install (${yesword} / ${noword})? " yn if [[ "$yn" =~ $yesexpr ]]; then make install; exit; fi if [[ "$yn" =~ $noexpr ]]; then exit; fi echo "Answer ${yesword} / ${noword}." done 

Obviously other communication strings remain untranslated here (Install, Answer) which would need to be addressed in a more fully completed translation, but even a partial translation would be helpful in many cases.

Finally, please check out the excellent answer by F. Hauri.

A widely available method to get user input at a shell prompt is the read command. Here is a demonstration:

while true; do read -p "Do you wish to install this program? " yn case $yn in [Yy]* ) make install; break;; [Nn]* ) exit;; * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";; esac done 

Another method, pointed out by Steven Huwig, is Bash's select command. Here is the same example using select:

echo "Do you wish to install this program?" select yn in "Yes" "No"; do case $yn in Yes ) make install; break;; No ) exit;; esac done 

With select you don't need to sanitize the input – it displays the available choices, and you type a number corresponding to your choice. It also loops automatically, so there's no need for a while true loop to retry if they give invalid input.

Also, Léa Gris demonstrated a way to make the request language agnostic in her answer. Adapting my first example to better serve multiple languages might look like this:

set -- $(locale LC_MESSAGES) yesexpr="$1"; noexpr="$2"; yesword="$3"; noword="$4" while true; do read -p "Install (${yesword} / ${noword})? " yn if [[ "$yn" =~ $yesexpr ]]; then make install; exit; fi if [[ "$yn" =~ $noexpr ]]; then exit; fi echo "Answer ${yesword} / ${noword}." done 

Obviously other communication strings remain untranslated here (Install, Answer) which would need to be addressed in a more fully completed translation, but even a partial translation would be helpful in many cases.

Finally, please check out the excellent answer by F. Hauri.