need help with this script please

[flyman]

hey how r ya guys ... I was trying to solve this problem but im really sure that I didnt get to the right answer yet , I posted my attempt so if anyone would help me looking at it and give some corrections thank u


write a script that will :
a) given the file name last_names exists in the current directory
b) use a loop to prompt for 5 text lines that the user can enter last name on
c) if the name entered is not in the file then add it to the file
===============================
echo -n "Enter 5 last names"
read guess
for guess in 1 2 3 4 5
do
echo -n "Enter another last time: "
read name
if [ "$guess" -ne "$last_name" ]
then
echo "$guess" >> "$last_name"
else
echo "ok."
fi
done

[atreyu]

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to do, but is this what you mean?

#!/bin/sh

# the file containing last names
last_name='last_name.txt'

# make sure the file exists, or quit
! [ -f $last_name ] && echo "$last_name: File not found" && exit 1

# loop thru 5 times
for guess in 1 2 3 4 5; do

  # get last name from user input
  read -p  "Enter last time #$guess: " name

  # look in the last name text file for the name entered
  cat $last_name|grep -q ^$name$
  if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then

    # if not found, append the name to the file list
    echo "$name" >> "$last_name"
  else

    # otherwise, indicate that it was found
    echo "name $name found."
  fi
done

[flyman]

thank you so much I got it working now ... appreciate ur help!!