Question

Thank you in advance for any help, this is coursework so further reading/ pointers is greatly appreciated.

I asked a question the other day relating to my own delete/trash/restore scripts and I have completed delete and trash as well as giving delete a backup text file for Restore to use later on.

However, instead of giving me errors, the Restore script just kinda stops in the console. Like when I type # ~/Restore -n the cursor skips to the next line without the usual # and I have to close it manually. Likewise without the -n option. The -n option should ask for a new location to restore to, and without it should restore to the files original location.
I’ll post my script, see what y’all think.

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$1" == "-n" ]
then  cd ~/rubbish
  restore= grep $2 ~/store      
  filename= basename "$restore"
  echo "Type the files new location"
  read location
  location1 = "readlink -f $location"       
  mv -i $filename "$location1" /$filename       
else  cd ~/rubbish          
  restore= grep $2 ~/store      
  filename= basename "$restore"         
  mv -i $filename "$location1" $location            
fi

so, ~/rubbish is my own created directory to act as a recycle bin and ~/store is my text file which appends the deleted files readlink details on deletion. I can post the whole 3 scripts if necessary?

Many thanks!

Answer 1

If you call ~/Restore -n it will go to the if part and do a grep $2 ~/store. Since there is no parameter $2 it will result in grep ~/store, which tells grep to search for “~/store” in the input coming from standard input.

That’s why your script stops and waits for input.

You can either test for a second parameter or enclose $2 in double quotes to make sure grep gets the correct number of parameters. Better yet, do both: 1. test for a second parameter and 2. enclose $2 in double quotes.

Some more points:

• Don’t put spaces around =
• enclose commands in backticks `, if you want to capture the output
• And no spaces between directory and filename

So, you should presumably write

restore=`grep "$2" ~/store`
filename=`basename "$restore"`
echo "Type the files new location"
read location
location1=`readlink -f "$location"`
mv -i $filename "$location1/$filename"

I suggest you look at bash info and follow the “Books and Resources”.