
whiptail:tldr:1ceae
This command is using the whiptail utility to create an input box dialog on the command line.
Here is a breakdown of the command:
${result_variable_name}
: This is the name of the variable that will store the user's input.
"$(whiptail --title "${title}" --inputbox "${message}" ${height_in_chars} ${width_in_chars} ${default_text} 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3)"
: This portion executes the whiptail
command and captures its output. It is enclosed in $()
to execute the command and store the output in the variable. The whiptail
command is responsible for creating the input box dialog. The values within the quotes are as follows:
--title "${title}"
: Sets the title of the dialog to the value stored in the variabletitle
.--inputbox "${message}"
: Sets the message displayed in the input box to the value stored in the variablemessage
.${height_in_chars}
: Specifies the height of the input box in characters.${width_in_chars}
: Specifies the width of the input box in characters.${default_text}
: Sets the default text value displayed in the input box.
The 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3
portion swaps the file descriptors to redirect standard output (STDOUT) to file descriptor 3, standard error (STDERR) to STDOUT, and file descriptor 3 back to standard error. This allows the output of the whiptail
command (which is the user's input) to be captured and stored in the variable ${result_variable_name}
.