How to remove contact from shell script? - bash

Question

I am creating a simple phonebook using unix shell scripts. I have gotten all of my functions to work except the removal of a contact after it has been created. I have tried combining grep and sed in order to accomplish this, but cannot seem to get over the hump. The removal shell i've tried is as follows.
#!/bin/sh
#removeContact.sh
echo “Remove Submenu”
echo “Please input First Name:”
read nameFirst
echo “Please input Last Name:”
read nameLast
x=$(grep -e “$nameFirst” -e “$nameLast” ContactList)
echo $x
sed '/'$x'/ d' ContactList;
echo “$nameFirst $nameLast is removed from your contacts”
exit 0
I'm not sure if I am declaring x incorrectly, or if my syntax is wrong when sed is used.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
#!/bin/bash
ContactList="contacts.txt"
export ContactList
exit=0
while [ $exit -ne 1 ]
do
echo "Main Menu"
echo "(a) Add a Contact"
echo "(r) Remove a Contact"
echo "(s) Search a Contact"
echo "(d) Display All Contact’s Information"
echo "(e) Exit"
echo "Your Choice?"
read choice
if [ "$choice" = "a" ]
then
./addContact.sh
elif [ "$choice" = "r" ]
then
./removeContact.sh
elif [ "$choice" = "s" ]
then
./searchContact.sh
elif [ "$choice" = "d" ]
then
./displayContact.sh
elif [ "$choice" = "e" ]
then
exit=1
else
echo "Error"
sleep 2
fi
done
exit 0
#!/bin/sh
#addContact.sh
ContactList="contacts.txt"
echo “Please input First Name:”
read nameFirst
echo “Please input Last Name:”
read nameLast
echo “Please input Phone Number:”
read number
echo “Please Input Address”
read address
echo “Please input Email:”
read email
echo $nameFirst:$nameLast:$number:$address:$email>> ContactList;
echo "A new contact is added to your book."
exit 0

Answer 1

sed '/'$x'/ d' ContactList
won't remove anything from the file ContactList, it will simply output the changes to standard output.
If you want to edit the file in-place, you'll need the -i flag (easy) or to make a temporary file which is then copied back over ContactList (not so easy, but needed if your sed has no in-place editing option).
In addition, since ContactList is a shell variable referencing the real file contacts.txt, you'll need to use $ContactList.
And, as a final note, since you're using the full line content to do deletion, the presence of an address like 1/15 Station St is going to royally screw up your sed command by virtue of the fact it contains the / character.
I would suggest using awk rather than sed for this task since it's much better suited to field-based data. With the record layout:
$nameFirst:$nameLast:$number:$address:$email
you could remove an entry with something like (including my patented paranoid perfect protection policy):
cp contacts.txt contacts.txt.$(date +%Y.%m.%d.%H.%M.%S_$$)
awk <contacts.txt >tmp.$$ -F: "-vF=$nameFirst" "-vL=$nameLast" '
F != $1 || L != $2 {print}'
mv tmp.$$ contacts.txt