Dear All, When using read, it would be really neat to be able to pre-fill the form with a default (or previous) value.
For example, a script which wants you to enter your name, and thinks that my name is Richard, but that I might want to correct it. Alternatively, this would be useful within a loop, to allow correction of previously-entered text, without fully typing it again. So, I propose an extra option, -i, to read, which will set the initial value of the text following the prompt. For example, ------------------------ #!/bin/bash read -e -p 'Enter your name: ' -i 'Richard' NAME echo "Hello, $NAME" ------------------------ This would print: Enter your name: Richard I would then be able to edit the part after the prompt, and change it to: Enter your name: R. Neill This would then print: Hello, R. Neill It is equivalent to the following in PHP/HTML: <? $name='Richard'; ?> Enter your name: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="name" SIZE=30 VALUE="<?=$name;?>"> An alternative syntax might be to make use of stdin for the read command, eg: echo 'Richard' | read -e -p 'Enter your name: ' NAME though I think I prefer the -i. I hope you like this idea. Thanks very much for your help. Richard