Bash script: always show menu after loop execution

Question

I'm using a bash script menu like this:

#!/bin/bash
PS3='Please enter your choice: '
options=("Option 1" "Option 2" "Option3" "Quit")
select opt in "${options[@]}"
do
    case $opt in
        "Option 1")
            echo "you chose choice 1"
            ;;
        "Option 2")
            echo "you chose choice 2"
            ;;
        "Option 3")
            echo "you chose choice 3"
            ;;
        "Quit")
            break
            ;;
        *) echo invalid option;;
    esac
done

After each menu selection I just get prompted with

Please enter your choice:

How do I always show the menu after each option has finished execution? I've done some looking around and I think I can do some kind of while loop, but I haven't been able to get anything working.

Show what you tried so we can help you fix it.

Mat
– Mat

2013-11-26 18:24:06 +00:00
Commented Nov 26, 2013 at 18:24 — Mat
– Mat, Commented Nov 26, 2013 at 18:24

thom · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-26 19:51:08Z

18

Make it beautiful and userfriendly ;-)

#!/bin/bash

while :
do
    clear
    cat<<EOF
    ==============================
    Menusystem experiment
    ------------------------------
    Please enter your choice:

    Option (1)
    Option (2)
    Option (3)
           (Q)uit
    ------------------------------
EOF
    read -n1 -s
    case "$REPLY" in
    "1")  echo "you chose choice 1" ;;
    "2")  echo "you chose choice 2" ;;
    "3")  echo "you chose choice 3" ;;
    "Q")  exit                      ;;
    "q")  echo "case sensitive!!"   ;; 
     * )  echo "invalid option"     ;;
    esac
    sleep 1
done

Replace the echos in this example with function calls or calls to other scripts.

edited Nov 26, 2013 at 19:51

answered Nov 26, 2013 at 19:00

thom

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Comments

Ranjithkumar T · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-26 19:14:42Z

7

just modified your script like below. its working for me !

 #!/bin/bash
 while true
 do
 PS3='Please enter your choice: '
 options=("Option 1" "Option 2" "Option 3" "Quit")
 select opt in "${options[@]}" 
 do
     case $opt in
         "Option 1")
             echo "you chose choice 1"
             break
             ;;
         "Option 2")
             echo "you chose choice 2"
             break
             ;;
         "Option 3")
             echo "you chose choice 3"
             break
             ;;
         "Quit")
             echo "Thank You..."                 
             exit
             ;;
         *) echo invalid option;;
     esac
 done
 done

edited Nov 26, 2013 at 19:14

answered Nov 26, 2013 at 18:53

Ranjithkumar T

1,96616 silver badges21 bronze badges

Comments

Jay · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-25 12:25:19Z

You can also do something like:

#!/bin/bash

PS3='Please enter your choice: '
options=("Option 1" "Option 2" "Option 3" "Quit")
select opt in "${options[@]}"
do
    case $opt in
        "Option 1")
            echo "you chose choice 1"
            ;;
        "Option 2")
            echo "you chose choice 2"
            ;;
        "Option 3")
            echo "you chose choice 3"
            ;;
        "Quit")
            break
            ;;
        *) echo invalid option;;
    esac
    counter=1
    SAVEIFS=$IFS
    IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")   # we set another delimiter, see also: https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/handling-filenames-with-spaces-in-bash.html
    for i in ${options[@]};
    do
        echo $counter')' $i
        let 'counter+=1'
    done
    IFS=$SAVEIFS
done

kanlukasz · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-14 09:28:29Z

You can achieve this by set the REPLY variable to be empty after esac.

Example with your code:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

PS3="Please enter your choice: "
options=("Option 1" "Option 2" "Option3" "Quit")
select opt in "${options[@]}"
do
    case $opt in
        "Option 1")
            echo "you chose choice 1"
            ;;
        "Option 2")
            echo "you chose choice 2"
            ;;
        "Option 3")
            echo "you chose choice 3"
            ;;
        "Quit")
            break
            ;;
        *) echo invalid option ;;
    esac
    REPLY=
done

Another example ( simpler version to understand ):

#!/usr/bin/env bash

select animal in dog duck cat bird quit ; do
    case $animal in
        dog)  echo "i'm a dog!" ;;
        duck) echo "i'm a duck!" ;;
        cat)  echo "i'm a cat!" ;;
        bird) echo "i'm a bird!" ;;
        quit) echo "bye" ; break ;;
        *)    echo "unknown animal, please try again..." ;;
    esac
    REPLY=
done

For an explanation, see the GNU bash documentation about conditional constructs - select

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