hello:

If the user enters a space in the email field I want the shell not to allow that and prompt them of what they have done......... I cannot get it to work...... Any ideas???


while echo "Enter email address EDI> \c" ; do
read email
case "$email" in
*[!\ @\ .\ a-zA-Z]*) echo "Email Address cannot contain spaces"; continue;;
"") echo "Empty fields not allowed"; continue;;
*) if [ `expr "$email" : '.*'` -gt 50 ] ;
then
echo "Maximun 50 Characters permitted"
else
break
fi;;
esac
done

Try this modified version of your script (accep only alphanumeric characters and @ . - );

This is a much nicer solution I have implemented it into the script and it works great!!!! If I may ask for your input again. How would you have the shell look for an initial space at the beginning of the email address. For example:

Enter email address EDI> milenko.villanueva@yahoo.com
vs
Enter email address EDI> milenko.villanueva@yahoo.com
===========
The second email address has a couple of spaces in front of it so when it writes it to the email file ....... spaces go with it. It would be great if when some typed in spaces before the email address for the shell to prompt the user "Email Address contains invalid characters".

Looking forward to your reply.

You know the second email example should have several spaces .....although it does not show it.

I tried the script with bash and pdksh (Public Domain Ksh).
In the both cases the read command removes the leading and trailing spaces and there is no way to determine if the user typed extra spaces.

If your 'read' command doesn't removes thoses spaces, I think that the 'case' statement may go to the invalid case.

Have you tried an address with spaces inside ?

In the both cases the read command removes the leading and trailing spaces and there is no way to determine if the user typed extra spaces.

>> You are absolutely RIGHT!!! the read command does remove spaces. You know now I am wondering if someone has access to the source file that we are writing to and somehow modifying it {hopefully by accident}.

Anyway how did you become so knowledgeble about the UX shells?

I work with computer since 1982, and with Unix for 6 years.