Question

I’m trying to use the bash select statement for a command loop. The variable in the select statement is always blank. Here is a simple script that illustrates the problem:

#!/bin/bash

select term in one two exit
do
  echo you selected $term
  case $term in
    one ) echo one; break;;
    two ) echo two; break;;
    exit ) echo will exit; return;;
  esac
done

Here is what happens when I run this script:

$ ./test.sh 
1) one
2) two
3) exit
#? one
you selected
#? two
you selected
#? exit
you selected
#? ^D

Anyone know what I might be doing wrong? I’m on Mac OS X 10.7.3. /bin/bash --version shows: GNU bash, version 3.2.48(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin11)

Answer 1

The script works if you type in “1” or “2” rather than “one” or “two”.