List files and show them in a menu with bash

Question

I am trying to use the files in a directory as options in a bash script. The user should be able to select one and then pass the name of the selected file into a variable. So far I can get the list of files, but after a few hours trying I can't figure out how to show them as options.

#!/bin/bash prompt="Please select a file:" options=( $(find -maxdepth 1 -print0 | xargs -0) ) PS3="$prompt " select opt in "${options[@]}" "Quit"; do case "$REPLY" in for i in "${options[@]}" do $i' ) echo "You picked $opt which is file $REPLY";;' done $(( ${#options[@]}+1 )) ) echo "Goodbye!"; break;; *) echo "Invalid option. Try another one.";continue;; esac done

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

choroba · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-05 09:57:29Z

25

I do not think case is suitable here:

#!/bin/bash prompt="Please select a file:" options=( $(find -maxdepth 1 -print0 | xargs -0) ) PS3="$prompt " select opt in "${options[@]}" "Quit" ; do if (( REPLY == 1 + ${#options[@]} )) ; then exit elif (( REPLY > 0 && REPLY <= ${#options[@]} )) ; then echo "You picked $opt which is file $REPLY" break else echo "Invalid option. Try another one." fi done ls -ld "$opt"

edited Feb 5, 2023 at 9:57

answered Apr 4, 2013 at 9:58

choroba

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2 Comments

antman1p Over a year ago

I am getting an error using the above code. /home/RepLoqt # sh -x RevPrxyLogQuery.sh ' title='Reverse Proxy Log Query Tool (RepLoqt) ' prompt='Select the log file you want to query: ++ find ./logfiles -maxdepth 1 -print0 ++ xargs -0 + options='(./logfiles ./logfiles/log_18-44 ./logfiles/log_18-3) ' $'\r''Reverse Proxy Log Query Tool (RepLoqt) everse Proxy Log Query Tool (RepLoqt) ' PS3='Select the log file you want to query: 'evPrxyLogQuery.sh: line 7: syntax error near unexpected token ` 'evPrxyLogQuery.sh: line 7: `select opt in "${options[@]}" "Quit" ;

antman1p Over a year ago

Never mind, for, some reason, because I had the .sh extension on the end of the file, it was giving me that error. Once I removed the extension, it worked... I'm not sure why.

eMPee584 · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-08 19:37:21Z

0

Don't miss percol, fzy, smenu and friends. They'll happily take from stdin, present a user-friendly select menu with interactive filter, then pipe selected lines out again.

answered Nov 8, 2017 at 19:37

eMPee584

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1 Comment

vastlysuperiorman Over a year ago

I feel like this answer could be greatly improved by giving more detail about each of the proposed alternatives and how each might be used to solve the asker's question.

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