how to set and accept default value

[gotchausa]

Hi,

I have a script which asks a question at the beg. of the script. THe user has to enter a value greater or equal to one. I want to make 1 as the default no. so that user only has to hit the ENTER key to enter 1 - instead of having to enter the actual no 1. Is there a way of doing this?

Thanx.

 

[aigles]

Hi,

With Ksh, you can do to set the default value to 1 :


echo "Enter option : \c"
read OPTION
: ${OPTION:=1}

Jean Pierre.

 

[gotchausa]

Great! Thanks. It works if I follow your example but I have something like this ...

trap 'print "\nYou did not enter a valid number. Try again .."' ERR

# User input must be integer
typeset -i REPLY

# Now get user input and loop thru till valid response received
while true
do
echo "\nEnter the number of tapes you will be restoring"
echo "for this restore operation: \c"

read REPLY 2> /dev/null

if (( $? == 0 ))
then
# OK, so integer has been entered but make sure it is more or equal to 1
while (( $REPLY < 1 ))
do
echo &quot;\nYou must enter a number greater or equal to 1: \c&quot;
read REPLY 2> /dev/null
done

break
fi
done

# Unset pseudo trap for ERR
trap - ERR


When I follow your example, my script just accepts any and all input and then cont. which is not what I want.