Chapter 13

Handling User Input

In This Chapter

• Command line parameters
• Special parameter variables
• Being shifty
• Working with options
• Standardizing options
• Getting user input

So far you've seen how to write scripts that interact with data, variables, and files on the Linux system. Sometimes, you need to write a script that has to interact with the person running the script. The bash shell provides a few different methods for retrieving data from people, including command line parameters (data values added after the command), command line options (single-letter values that modify the behavior of the command), and the capability to read input directly from the keyboard. This chapter discusses how to incorporate these different methods into your bash shell scripts to obtain data from the person running your script.