Passing parameters to Shell script for GREP command

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I am using grep to capture date from a file .

Since i need to use the shell script for different dates ,is it possible to pass the date parameter to the shell script

the Script is as below

grep -E "08 Aug 2008|2008-08-08"* somefile.txt>test.txt

The above script file greps the file somefile.txt by capturing the pattern of dates as mentioned and outputting the data to the test.txt file.

How do i write a shell script which would prompt the user to input the dates into the grep command .

Else the user has to edit the script file and keep on changing the dates which is cubersome and also not feasible for the user to use .

2 
read input_pattern
echo "this is input_patten $input_pattern"
grep $input_pattern filename