jonhiggs / question

Ask and validate a question within a shell script. It will set correct exit codes and/or return the entered value.

question

Ask and validate a question within a shell script. It will set correct exit codes and/or return the entered value.

Requirements

It should run on any Unix OS. If you have cecho then you'll get some colour.

Usage

question [OPTIONS] <question>

Options

Switch	Value
--accepted-inputs=	regex	Regular Expression describing acceptable inputs.
--no-colour		Don't colour the string.
--no-notify		Do not attempt to notify with terminal-notifier.
--no-revalidate		Exit with error if first answer is invalid.
--quiet		Do not echo the answer.
--title=	string	Title to send to terminal notifier.
--type=	ami	An Amazon Machine Image ami-aaaaaaaa.
	date	A date (requires GNU date).
	environment	Either 'testing', 'staging' or 'production'.
	existing_file	A file that currently exists.
	instance-id	An AWS instance-id like i-aaaaaaaa.
	integer	A number.
	list	A comma delimited list.
	multiword	A string of words.
	singleword	A single word.
	yes_no	Either 'yes' or 'no'. (default)
--verbose		Echo the answer.

Examples

Set a variable with the answer of a question:

    TYPES=$(question --type=multiword "What type of animals do you farm")

Set a variable with a value:

    ANIMALS=$(question --type=integer "How many animals")

Set a variable with one of two options:

    GENDER=$(question --accepted-inputs="^(boy|girl)$" "Whats your gender")

You can enter a block using the return value of a question.

    if question "Do you have any camels"; then
        echo "I wonder if you can drink a camels milk..."
    fi

Or you can get the actual value that was set with the verbose switch:

    FARMER=$(question --verbose "Are you a farmer")

You can loop over a list of answers:

RESULT=0
for x in $(./question --type=list "What scores did you get"); do
    RESULT=$(( ${RESULT} + $x ))
done
echo ${RESULT}