Extremly Newbie - bash script

Question

I want to create a extremely simple bash script, (my_copy.sh), that reads arbitrary number input files, a destination directory, and finally asks for confirmation if you want to perform the copy.

Example usage: ./my_copy.sh

 Type in the file names to copy:
 file1 file2 Anna Kurt Arne
 Type in the directory to copy to:
 dir_3
 Are you sure you want to copy the files:
 Anna
 Kurt
 Arne
 to the directory dir_3 (y/n)?

If the destination directory does not exists it should be created by the script.

and my next question:

I want the * character to do a simple ls command. So if I type ./my_copy * , in the command line it should list all files in my directory.

Answer 1

Your second question is quite difficult. The shell will attempt to interpret * and replace it with all items in the current directory. The only way the shell will give you a * as the only entry in the argument list is if all the files in the directory have names starting with a dot. So, your example command would actually get called with $0 = my_copy and $1 = my_copy.

Answer 2

Unless the * is escaped or quoted when calling your script, the shell will expand it before you script gets it.

./my_copy '*'

or

./my_copy \*

It looks like you're trying to add a simple confirmation wrapper around 'cp'. Or are you trying to make it interactively prompt the user?

Answer 3

You could use "cp -i", which makes it interactive and prompt before overwriting. You could also add that as an alias to .bash_profile, so it always prompts.

Answer 4

You cannot give * as argument, but you can replace it with letter "e" for example and do this:

if [ "$1" = "e" ]
then
    ls
else
    return 0
fi