While loop and IFS?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

while [ 1 -eq 1 ]; do
    echo "Please enter "
    read enter
    yyyy=${enter:0:4}
    mm=${enter:5:2}
    dd=${enter:8:2}
    result=`validateDate $yyyy $mm $dd`

When does the loop keeping repeating till?? till 1 is equal to 1?

what does this mean "${enter:0:4}" .The 0 and 4 part??

What does IFS do?? so if its set to IFS='' . What happens?? or what can you do with it??

2

I hope this isn't homework...

The while loop: it loops as long as 1 equals 1 (which is forever) :slight_smile:

3

lol.. it is not.. i am not asking anyone to do any coding for me :D.. just some coding i didnt understand so wanted to clarify.. :):smiley:

4

Start at position 0 and take 4 characters. And IFS is the Internal Field Separator. It controls how words get split. But I didn't see it in the code you posted.