How to use a multiple line list with the select command in ksh?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I copied the below program to play around with displaying a list of items using the select command in ksh. When I put all items in the same line, it works fine. I am trying to use multiple lines instead of a single row...my list is too large for a single line. How do I get the line continuation to work properly. The initial script used a "\" at the end of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines in the "select" command...this only displayed the "\" before the ^J. I took the "\" out, but that didn't change the output format. Here's the code:

#!/bin/ksh

set -A termnames gl35a t2000 s531 vt99
echo "\n"
print 'Select your terminal type:'
echo "\n"
PS3='terminal? '
select term in '
    'Givalt GL35a'
    'Tsoris T-2000'
    'Shande 531'
    'Vey VT99''
do
    if [[ -n $term ]]; then
        TERM=${termnames[REPLY-1]}
        print "TERM is $TERM"
        break
    fi
done

***********************************
The output below is from the above "select" command:

Select your terminal type:


1) ^J    Givalt
2) GL35a^J    Tsoris
3) T-2000^J    Shande
4) 531^J    Vey
5) VT99
terminal? 1
TERM is gl35a

I have also tried removing the single quotes that surround the list in the select command, but this returns the syntax error:

termname.sh[8]: syntax error at line 9 : `newline or ;' unexpected

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jeff

2

Instead of using single quotes around all of the terms, simply continue the list by ending each line of the list, except the last, with a backslash (you can use this to continue any shell command).

Regards,
Alister

3

alister...thank you so much. The original code did not have a "\" after "select term in"...which is the first line in the command. I could've sworn that I tried that, but after countless changes, I needed a new set of eyes. Works like a charm.

One more question. If you don't have a quick fix, you can tell me to do another post, but, I wanted to know if there is a way to display a multi-column list? Would I use select again or something else?

Thanks in advance,
Jeff

4

What do you mean by "multi-column-list"? Pls post example. If there's enough list items, select will split them into several columns istself:

select term in "Givalt GL35" "Tsoris T-2000" "Shande 531" "Vey VT99" "Givalt GL35" "Tsoris T-2000" "Shande 531" "Vey VT99"; do echo $term; done
1) Givalt GL35      3) Shande 531        5) Givalt GL35    7) Shande 531
2) Tsoris T-2000  4) Vey VT99        6) Tsoris T-2000  8) Vey VT99