[Israel]

Been working out of some Bash Scripting videos. Don't know why this code doesn't seem to run, even though I followed the instructions to the tee. The videos are a little dated though. But the only stuff not working are the \t \n and ^G.

#!/bin/sh

#Put file name we're saving the info above to in a var called fname
fname=./names.dat

# If the file does not exist create it
[ ! -f $fname ] && $fname

# Display the menu
clear
echo "\n\t\tThe Shell Programming Database"
echo "\t\t\tMain Menu"
echo "\nWhat do you want to do?\n"
echo "\t1. Create records"
echo "\t2. View records"
echo "\t3. Search for records"
echo "\t4. Delete records that match a pattern"
echo

# Ask for an answer
echo -n "Answer?"
read ans junk

# Decide what to do
case "$ans" in
        # read in the contact details from the keyboard
      1)
        echo "Please enter the following details:"
        echo
        #Ask user for name and address
        echo -n "Please enter your first name: "
        read first
        echo -n "Please enter your surname: "
        read sur
        echo -n "Enter your street address: "
        read street
        echo -n "Enter your city: "
        read city
        echo -n "Enter you state: "
        read state
        echo -n "Finally your zip code: "
        read zip

        # Append info entered to names.dat
        echo $first:$sur:$street:$city:$state:$zip >> $fname
        ;;
      2)
        # Show what's in the file
        echo
        echo Here are the current contacts recorded:
        echo
        (cat $fname | more)

        # count and tell user the number of these records stored
        echo
        echo There are `cat $fname | wc -l` contacts in the database.
        ;;
      3)
        echo Seach not finished
        ;;
      4)
        echo Search not finshed
        ;;
      *)
        echo "Really?^G"
        ;;
esac

[westforduk]

Try using the -e flag.

echo -e "Words Words \t Words"

to allow special characters

[Israel]

That worked! Thank You!

[Israel]

I may have spoke too soon. It worked on \t and \n but not the ^G. I researched the man page for echo and saw I probably should have used \a instead.

Quote

\a alert (BEL)

While this does run instead of showing up in the text, there's no alert bell?

[no2pencil]

Does your system have a bell?

[Israel]

Looks like it to me...

# modprobe -l | grep pcspkr
/lib/modules/2.6.35.8/kernel/drivers/input/misc/pcspkr.ko

This post has been edited by Israel: 12 March 2011 - 11:34 PM

[no2pencil]

Can you cause an audio beep with any other program? Either a wrong key press in Bios, or interrupt the bootup sequence & fill the keyboard buffer.

[Israel]

Yeah, this is a new distro for me so I checked. I did get a little beep when hit some input during the boot sequence.

[no2pencil]

I know that there is a device for the sound card, /dev/audio is usually a symbolic link to the sound card block device. I think that there is (or used to be) one for the system speaker as well. Maybe there is a kernel modules, something like pcspkr?

Depending on the distro, they may have done away with such legacy hardware devices.

[Israel]

I did post the path to my module for pcspkr, but I didn't know it was linked in /dev. Apparently it doesn't exist there in this distro. Whatever the case I think I'll let it die for now. This isn't for work or school, I just wanted to make sure I was learning it right. Thanks for your help.

This post has been edited by Israel: 13 March 2011 - 01:55 AM