I wish to run a bash script that asks for a variable to be then used in a sqlite query.
I have no real experience in scripting, anyway I've tried something like the following but it doesn't work. Doesn't even give an error, just it doesn't show anything.
#!/bin/bash
echo name
read name
sqlite3 /arch.db << 'EOF'
.headers on
select type, number, address from documents where name = '$name';
EOF
I'd appreciate any help.
Before answering about your script:
are you sure that the path is correct? This path: sqlite3 /arch.db means that arch.db is searched in the root /.
Perhaps you meant ./arch.db? So that the sqlite db file is looked in the same path of the script?
Please note that **the $name var is quoted in two ', that means that the variable is not treated as such, but as a string.
Your script could be rewritten in this way:
#!/bin/bash
echo name
read name
sqlite3 ./arch.db <<EOF
.headers on
select type, number, address from documents where name = "$name";
EOF
<<'EOF' correctly introduces a quoted here-document. There is nothing wrong with the quoting of EOF at the start of the here-document, other than the fact that it stops $name from being expanded. The single quotes around $name inside the here-document is just text, not shell syntax, so they have no meaning to the shell. Note that there is a huge difference between using single and double quotes in an SQL statement and that "something" refers to a column in a table, whereas 'something' is a string.
– Kusalananda
Aug 16 '22 at 09:06
$name, not against the variable with the same name – Chris Davies May 08 '21 at 16:10'EOF'prevent expansion of the heredoc contents, regardless of any quoting used within it – steeldriver May 08 '21 at 17:59