Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

Reading n characters without pressing the return key

read is an important Bash command to read text from the keyboard or standard input. We can use read to interactively read an input from the user, but read is capable of much more. Most of the input libraries in any programming language read the input from the keyboard; but string input termination is done when return is pressed. There are certain critical situations when return cannot be pressed, but the termination is done based on a number of characters or a single character. For example, in a game, a ball is moved upward when + is pressed. Pressing + and then pressing return every time to acknowledge the + press is not efficient. In this recipe we will use the read command that provides a ...