Switch case

case $1 in
[a-z]) echo "You entered a small alphabet" ;;
[A-Z]) echo "you entered a capital alphabet" ;;
[0-9]) echo "You entered a digit";;
*) echo "Unknown entry" ;;
esac

This is a shell script.
Suppose I run ./sample A
it says you entered a small alphabet.
suppose I run ./sample a
it says you entered a small alphabet

Now when I interchange the first two statements in my switch case script, then
[A-Z]) echo "you entered a capital alphabet" ;;
[a-z]) echo "You entered a small alphabet" ;;

It says you entered a capital alphabet whether my input is caps or small.Why this divergence ?

Any explanation ?

it ignores the case i guess...

Ya I guess so too! But its incorrect behavior! Any solutions ?

guess its not related case-sensitive/insensitive issues
if so how come the following works???

case ${option} in
a)echo "You entered a small alphabet:$option" ;;
A)echo "you entered a capital alphabet:$option" ;;
[0-9] )echo "You entered a digit";;
*) echo "Unknown entry" ;;
esac

[335802@oracleclient ~]$ ./whiletest A
A
option:A
you entered a capital alphabet:A
[335802@oracleclient ~]$ ./whiletest a
a
option:a
You entered a small alphabet:a

case $1 in
[a-z]) echo "You entered a small alphabet" ;;
[A-Z]) echo "you entered a capital alphabet" ;;
[0-9]) echo "You entered a digit";;
*) echo "Unknown entry" ;;
esac

[335818@oracleclient ~]$ ./sample A
You entered a small alphabet
[335818@oracleclient ~]$ ./sample Z
you entered a capital alphabet

This is the result I got.Does this mean case doesn't process patterns ?
When I gave a-s and A-S it said S is a capital alphabet but everything else was a small alphabet ? Any clue ?

case $1 in
[a,z]) echo "You entered a small alphabet" ;;
[A,Z]) echo "you entered a capital alphabet" ;;
[0,9]) echo "You entered a digit";;
*) echo "Unknown entry" ;;
esac

This works perfectly! So the problem is when I give range

are u sure it is working for all alphabets...guess it works for a,A z,Z 0,9
not for other alphabets......

and i don know if the problem is with range bcoz the following works...

echo "enter option:"
read a
case $a in
[A-Z]) echo "you entered a capital alphabet:$a" ;;
[0-9]) echo "You entered a digit" ;;
?) echo "special symbol" ;;
*) echo "Unknown entry" ;;
esac

[335802@oracleclient ~]$ sh make
enter option:
a
special symbol
[335802@oracleclient ~]$ sh make
enter option:
F
you entered a capital alphabet:F


check out

i don know about shell, but in other languages, one case can be used to check only one value(not a range).

case $1 in
[A-Z]) echo "you entered a capital alphabet" ;;
[0-9]) echo "You entered a digit";;
*) echo "Unknown entry" ;;
esac

Here capital letter works fine! Because there is no interference with small letter.But if i give ./sample a it still gives capital letter

Anyway the shell is confused !

@Christopher - shell does allow range!

are u sure tat case supports range?? i don think so.

If ranges didn't work 0-9 should have failed as well.But, thats working perfectly!

case $1 in
[A-I]) echo \"you entered a capital alphabet\" ;;
[0-9]) echo \"You entered a digit\";;
*) echo \"Unknown entry\" ;;
esac
tried this command got error on the following inputs:
e,d,f,g,h,c,b,i

I think there might be other reason for the command not to work properly apart from the range..

Yup! range and case together playing havoc! No clue yet!

try this code

Code:

case $1 in
[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz]) echo "You entered a small alphabet";;
[ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ]) echo "you entered a capital alphabet";;
[0-9]) echo "You entered a digit";;
*) echo "Unknown entry";;
esac


hope it works well. but i didn't test for all possible inputs.

but why it s not working when we specify range???

I think case doesnt work in case statement. when we are specifying a range
but if we specify a range of [A-I] let say it works for both A-I and b-i except samll a. why???

im using ubuntu 9.10 in my laptop. when i try to run tat pgm(case with range), it works well. i think it is something to do with shell version.

Yes it has something to do with the version of the shell! By logic, there is no flaw and it should work.