I am writing an installation script that will be run as /bin/sh.

There is a line prompting for a file:

read -p "goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so. Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " REPLY

I would like to break this long line into many lines so that none of them exceed 80 characters. I'm talking about the lines within the source code of the script; not about the lines that are to be actually printed on the screen when the script is executed!

What I've tried:

• 
  

  Frist approach:

  
  
  

  read -p "goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so. " 
  
      "Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " REPLY
  
  

  
  
  

  This doesn't work since it doesn't print Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n].

  
  


• 
  

  Second approach:

  
  
  

  echo "goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so. " 
  
      "Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] "
  
  read REPLY
  
  

  
  
  

  Doesn't work as well. It prints a newline after the prompt. Adding -n option to echo doesn't help: it just prints:

  
  
  

  -n goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so. Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n]
  
  # empty line here
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  My current workaround is

  
  
  

  printf '%s %s ' 
  
      "goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so." 
  
      "Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] "
  
  read REPLY
  
  

  
  

and I wonder if there is a better way.

Remember that I am looking for a /bin/sh compatible solution.

First of all, let's decouple the read from the text line by using a variable:

text="line-1 line-2"             ### Just an example.

read -p "$text" REPLY

In this way the problem becomes: How to assign two lines to a variable.

Of course, a first attempt to do that, is:

a="line-1 

line-2"

Written as that, the var a actually gets the value line-1 line-2.

But you do not like the lack of indentation that this creates, well, then we may try to read the lines into the var from a here-doc (be aware that the indented lines inside the here-doc need a tab, not spaces, to work correctly):

    a="$(cat <<-_set_a_variable_

        line-1

        line-2

        _set_a_variable_

    )"

echo "test1 <$a>"

But that would fail as actually two lines are written to $a.
A workaround to get only one line might be:

    a="$( echo $(cat <<-_set_a_variable_

        line 1

        line 2

        _set_a_variable_

        ) )"

echo "test2 <$a>"

That is close, but creates other additional issues.

Correct solution.

All the attempts above will just make this problem more complex that it needs to be.

A very basic and simple approach is:

a="line-1"

a="$a line-2"

read -p "$a" REPLY

The code for your specific example is (for any shell whose read supports -p):

#!/bin/dash

    a="goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so."

    a="$a Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] "

# absolute freedom to indent as you see fit.

        read -p "$a" REPLY

For all the other shells, use:

#!/bin/dash

    a="goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so."

    a="$a Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] "

# absolute freedom to indent as you see fit.

        printf '%s' "$a"; read REPLY

The backslash at the end of the lines is allowing the continuation of the command over multiple lines, not actual line breaks in the output.

So your first approach, for example, becomes the command

read -p "goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so. " "Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " REPLY

I'm not sure why you want read to output multiple lines, but I would simply use read for the prompt line and echo the preceding line(s).

To make the code more readable over multiple lines, don't close/open your quotes between lines.

Try this:

read -p "goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so. 

Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " REPLY

I find @BinaryZebra's approach using a variable to be cleaner, but you can also do it the way you were attempting. You just need to keep the line breaks inside the quotes:

read -p "goat can try change directory if cd fails to do so. 

Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " REPLY

What about just this:

#!/bin/bash

read -p "Hello

world

this is a

multi-line

prompt:" PROMPT

echo $PROMPT