Nesting If Condition Inside A While Loop

Question

I'm reading the contents of a file and storing them in 2 variables then simultaneously want to compare it with an array using if statement. Code is given below

#!/bin/bash

# Define File

datafile=./regions-with-keys

# Create Nodes File

cat << EOF > $datafile

region1 key1
region2 key2
region3 key3



EOF


# User Input
clear;
echo -ne "PLEASE SELECT REGIONS(s) :\n\033[37;40m[Minimum 1 Region Required]\033[0m"

read -ra a
echo "${a[@]}"


# Reading Regions & Keys

for i in "${a[@]}"
do
    while read -r $b $c; do

        if [ "${a[@]}" -eq "$b" ]; then
            echo "$b" "$c"
        fi

    done < $datafile
done;

it gives command not found for if statement when executed.. Aim of the code is to match the array indexes of userinput with $a from $datafile, if match is successful print $b and $c

Answer 1

Try this Shellcheck-clean code:

#!/bin/bash -p

# Define File
datafile=./regions-with-keys

# Create Nodes File
cat <<EOF >"$datafile"
region1 key1
region2 key2
region3 key3
EOF

# User Input
clear
echo 'PLEASE SELECT REGIONS(s) :'
echo -ne '\e[37;40m[Minimum 1 Region Required]\e[0m'

read -ra input_regions
declare -p input_regions

# Reading Regions & Keys
for input_rgn in "${input_regions[@]}" ; do
    while read -r data_rgn key ; do
        if [[ $data_rgn == "$input_rgn" ]] ; then
            printf '%s %s\n' "$data_rgn" "$key"
        fi
    done <"$datafile"
done

Significant changes from the code in the question are:

• Use meaningful variable names.
• Use declare -p input_regions to print the contents of the array in an unambiguous way.
• Use varname instead of $varname as arguments to read. That fixes a serious bug in the original code.
• Use printf instead of echo for printing variable values. See Why is printf better than echo?.
• Used [[ ... == ...]] instead of [ ... -eq ... ] for comparing the region names.
  [[ ... ]] is more powerful than [ ... ]. See Is double square brackets [[ ]] preferable over single square brackets [ ] in Bash?. Also, -eq is for comparing integers and == (or, equivalently, =) is for comparing strings.
• Did various cleanups (removed some blank lines, removed unnecessary semicolons, ...).
• The new code is Shellcheck-clean. Shellcheck identified several problems with the original code.

If you want to report incorrect input regions, try replacing the "Reading Regions & Keys" code with this:

for input_rgn in "${input_regions[@]}" ; do
    # Find the key corresponding to $input_rgn
    key=
    while read -r data_rgn data_key ; do
        [[ $data_rgn == "$input_rgn" ]] && key=$data_key && break
    done <"$datafile"

    if [[ -n $key ]] ; then
        printf '%s %s\n' "$input_rgn" "$key"
    else
        printf "error: region '%s' not found\\n" "$input_rgn" >&2
    fi
done