How to ask user input again and get new value if validation fails?

Question

In my program I need to validate user input getting by "read" in shell script. It check user input has spaces and if validation fails we should give user a another chance to input again.

stringValidator() {  
  if [[ ${1} =~ " " ]]; then
    echo Should not contain spaces
    echo Enter Again!    
    read input
    echo $2=$input 
    return $2   
  else 
    return $1  
  fi
}


echo "Enter below details"
echo -e "client-id :"
read clientId
stringValidator "$clientId" ${!clientId@}

Here I tried to do was send the variable name also into stringValidator() and reassign value to that name (here it is clientId).

But the problem is I can't return that variable from stringValidator(). I use many read inputs though I showed only one here. Therefore I need a separate function for validation.

If you have better way to do this please mention.

Answer 1

The statement "return" is not used like that, it's to send back an error code (numerical).

That code should do what you want though :

#!/bin/bash

echo "Enter below details"

while true; do
    echo -n "client-id : "
    read clientID
    if [[ $clientID =~ " " ]]; then
        echo "ClientID Should not contain spaces"
        continue
    else
        break
    fi
done

echo "do something else"

EDIT

To answer your comment, this code in ksh would do what you ask :

#!/bin/ksh

function stringValidator
{

typeset locVarName
typeset locVar

locVarName=$1
nameref locVar=$1

while true; do
    if [[ $locVar =~ " " ]]; then
        echo "$locVarName should not contain spaces"
        echo -n "$locVarName : "
        read locVar
        continue
    else
        break
    fi
done
}

echo "Enter below details"
echo -n "Client-ID : "
read clientId
stringValidator "clientId"
echo "Final value is $clientId"

echo "do something else"

Running would result to something like that :

Enter below details
Client-ID : test t
clientId should not contain spaces
clientId : tesgg
Final value is tesgg
do something else

Hope it helps !