I know this is probably the dumbest question but I have no idea how to get the keyboard input into my shell. I am writing a script to take a positive integer, and only one integer from the keyboard input and put it into a while loop in my script. I know this should be simple, probably so simple that no one has bothered to explain it. This is my script so far: read number #this my keyboard input????? x= "number" while (($x>0)) do print $x (($x=x-1)) done thanks in advance for your help This is my first script in Unix, so please be patient with my lack of knowledge.

Your problem is probably the while loop: #!/bin/ksh # no error checking echo "enter 1 integer" read x while [ $x -gt 0 ] do echo $x #x=$((x-1)) ((x-=1)) done optionally, you can use: x=$((x-1)) instead of ((x-=1))

Thanks so much. I am learning from your script! I need to do a lot more to it but this really helps!

Ok, I have one other question. How do I get my output all on one line. I would like my numbers to read 4, 3, 2, 1 not 4, 3, 2, 1 any ideas? thanks Tina

One way is using printf: #!/bin/ksh # no error checking echo "enter 1 integer" read x while [ $x -gt 0 ] do if [[ $x = 1 ]] then printf "%d\n" $x else printf "%d," $x fi ((x-=1)) done # end script You can also use echo and suppress the newline.

thanks the printf command did the trick! I am very new to unix! thanks again Tina