case loop... repeat on bad input?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I'm trying to get a case statement to start over if an undefined option is selected... But I am ata loss on how to actually do it.

Here is a quick example of what I have.

Echo "1) do this/n
2) Do that/n
3) Quit/n
Make a selection/n"
Read answer
Case answer in
1) Dothid;;
2) Dothat;;
3) Exit;;
*) restart the echo menu

Can anyone point me in the correct direction on how to do this... Ithink that I need a while loop but I am not sure how to structurew it.

Please ignore the sloppy example and typos, stuck on a blackberry

2

here is an example using select. if you don't want to use select you can just write a loop around your existing code and "continue" if they don't select a valid option.

select f in foo bar blah
do

   case "$f" in 
       foo) echo foo
            break
       ;;
       bar) echo bar
            break
       ;;
       blah) echo blah
            break
       ;;
       *) echo sorry
    esac

done
3

Are u goin to make selection as only 1,2 or 3 or is it full line..
Suppose that u have to make selection as 1) do this then do the following :

case $answer in 
                 "1\) do this")
                                   echo Dothis
                  ;;
                 "2\) do that")
                                   echo Dothat
                  ;;
                 "3\) quit")
                                   echo exit
                  ;;
                 *) restart the echo menu
                  ;;
esac

I dont have access to unix server right now sop dint try out my code. Please let me know whether it works.

4

frank, changing everything to select worked perfectly for my needs. Thank you very much!