Bash Script – Prompt to Confirm (Y/N, YES/NO)

Written by Rahul, Updated on March 5, 2020

Question – How to add [Y/n] confirmation in our own shell scripts? How to take input from the user as Yes/No/Y/N in bash?

Many times you have seen commands ask for confirmation [Y/n] or [Yes/No] input. This is a very useful part to know if a user wants to proceed with the remaining steps for not. You can also add the same function to your script. This article will help you with examples of (Bash Script – Prompt to Confirm (Y/N, YES/NO)) this type of inputs.

#1. Bash (Yes/No) Prompt

This example code will prompt for confirming once if you give wrong input, the program will exit with status 1. The below example code will accept only Y or n or yes or no (Not case-sensitive).

#!/bin/bash

read -r -p "Are You Sure? [Y/n] " input

case $input in
    [yY][eE][sS]|[yY])
		echo "Yes"
		;;
    [nN][oO]|[nN])
		echo "No"
       		;;
    *)
	echo "Invalid input..."
	exit 1
	;;
esac

#!/bin/bash

read -r -p "Are You Sure? [Y/n] " input

case $input in

[yY][eE][sS]|[yY])

echo "Yes"

;;

[nN][oO]|[nN])

echo "No"

;;

echo "Invalid input..."

exit 1

;;

esac

#2 Prompt for Confirmation (in Loop)

This is another example code will prompt for confirmation until you give proper input like (Y, N, YES or NO). If you give the wrong input, it will again prompt for correct input and repeat the same steps. This example will accept only Y or N or YES or NO (Not case-sensitive).

#!/bin/bash

while true
do
	read -r -p "Are You Sure? [Y/n] " input

	case $input in
	    [yY][eE][sS]|[yY])
			echo "Yes"
			break
			;;
	    [nN][oO]|[nN])
			echo "No"
			break
	       		;;
	    *)
		echo "Invalid input..."
		;;
	esac
done

#!/bin/bash

while true