Why is my If Statement in Bash not working? - bash

Question

Hi I'm creating an archiving system in bash with a long and messy if statement which doesn't currently work with the current errors being on the last few lines with the else if statement. Although I expect there are further errors with this statement anyway. The variable choice is from a menu which displays in the terminal. So if they select option 1 the user then has to enter data to be written to the crontab file.
if [ $choice -eq "1" ] then
echo "Enter the MINUTE"
read minute
if [ $minute -eq 0 ] then
GLOBIGNORE=*
minute="*"
echo minute
fi
echo "Enter the Hour"
read hour
if [ $hour -eq 0 ] then
GLOBIGNORE=*
hour="*"
echo hour
fi
echo "Enter the Day"
read day
if [ $day -eq 0 ] then
GLOBIGNORE=*
day="*"
echo day
fi
echo "Enter the Month"
read month
if [ $month -eq 0 ] then
GLOBIGNORE=*
month="*"
echo month
fi
echo "Enter the weekday"
read weekday
if [ $weekday -eq 0 ] then
GLOBIGNORE=*
weekday="*"
echo weekday
fi
echo $minute $hour $day $month $weekday " date > ~/testcron.log" > testcron.txt fi
elif [ $choice -eq "2" ]
then
echo "Enter the Source and Destination Locations"
fi

Answer 1

There are several issues with your code:
if [ $hour -eq 0 ] then
GLOBIGNORE=*
hour="*"
echo hour
fi
In general (all test []) are missing a ; after it:
if [ $hour -eq 0 ]; then
The echo hour will not print the value of var hour but the word hour. Change to echo "$hour" (yes, quoted). Also, there is no need to set the variable GLOBIGNORE to * if vars are properly quoted.
The vars here are not quoted, that is a reason for it to fail (or to need GLOBIGNORE):
echo $minute $hour $day $month $weekday
Change to:
echo "$minute $hour $day $month $weekday"
The redirection on that same line is a plain >, that will empty the file.
If you want to append to the files, do as this:
echo "$minute $hour $day $month $weekday" "$(date >> ~/testcron.log)" >>testcron.txt
In that line there is an unneeded additional fi
This script may be of help:
get(){
read -p "$1" "$2"
if [ "$((${!2}))" -eq 0 ]; then
eval "$2"="*"
echo "${!2}"
fi
}
read -p "Choice?:" choice
if [ "$choice" -eq "1" ]; then
get "Enter the MINUTE" minute
get "Enter the Hour" hour
get "Enter the Day" day
get "Enter the Month" month
get "Enter the weekday" weekday
date >> ~/testcron.log
echo "$minute $hour $day $month $weekday" >> testcron.txt
elif [ "$choice" -eq "2" ]; then
echo "Enter the Source and Destination Locations"
fi

Answer 2

You are missing a semi-colon:
if [ $choice -eq "1" ]; then
or
if [ $choice -eq "1" ]
then
A semi-colon or a newline is required because the command is actually [ and has to be terminated after the ], which is just the last argument given to [.
That is the old test (or [) syntax, you could also use:
if (( choice == 1 ))
then