value present in a list

amolbc · #1 (**permalink**) 03-24-04, 08:30

hi,

i just want to test if a value say $VAR is present in a list
so i have a list like

LIST='A,B,C,D,E'

and now i get VAR filled in from somewhere and want to check if it is in the LIST...the items are delimited by ',' here

i may need to do a switch case sort of depending on whether VAR is in LIST or not.... so my imaginary construct wud go like

if [ $VAR in $LIST ] then
echo '$VAR present in the list'
fi

now someone please help me get the correct shell conctructs for it.

bye

aigles · #2 (**permalink**) 03-24-04, 09:25

You can do like this :

Code:

if echo ",$LIST," | grep -q ",$VAR," 
then
   echo '$VAR present in the list'
fi

If you want, you can define a function for this purpose :

Code:

IsInList() {
   echo ",$2," | grep -q ",$1,"
}

if IsInList "$VAR" "$LIST"
then
   echo '$VAR present in the list'
fi

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