I want to pause input in a shell script and prompt the user to choose. Standard "yes, no or cancel" type question. How to do this in a typical bash prompt?

#1 building

Use the read command:

echo Would you like to install? "(Y or N)"

read x

# now check if $x is "y"
if [ "$x" = "y" ]; then
    # do something here!
fi

Then everything else you need

#2 building

This is what I organized:

#!/bin/sh

promptyn () {
    while true; do
        read -p "$1 " yn
        case $yn in
            [Yy]* ) return 0;;
            [Nn]* ) return 1;;
            * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";;
        esac
    done
}

if promptyn "is the sky blue?"; then
    echo "yes"
else
    echo "no"
fi

I'm a beginner, so I can add a little salt, but it seems to work.

#3 building

yn() {
  if [[ 'y' == `read -s -n 1 -p "[y/n]: " Y; echo $Y` ]];
  then eval $1;
  else eval $2;
  fi }
yn 'echo yes' 'echo no'
yn 'echo absent no function works too!'

#4 building

This solution reads a single character and calls a function in the yes response.

read -p "Are you sure? (y/n) " -n 1
echo
if [[ $REPLY =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
    do_something      
fi

#5 building

Multiple versions:

ask () {                        # $1=question $2=options
    # set REPLY
    # options: x=..|y=..
    while $(true); do
        printf '%s [%s] ' "$1" "$2"
        stty cbreak
        REPLY=$(dd if=/dev/tty bs=1 count=1 2> /dev/null)
        stty -cbreak
        test "$REPLY" != "$(printf '\n')" && printf '\n'
        (
            IFS='|'
            for o in $2; do
                if [ "$REPLY" = "${o%%=*}" ]; then
                    printf '\n'
                    break
                fi
            done
        ) | grep ^ > /dev/null && return
    done
}

Example:

$ ask 'continue?' 'y=yes|n=no|m=maybe'
continue? [y=yes|n=no|m=maybe] g
continue? [y=yes|n=no|m=maybe] k
continue? [y=yes|n=no|m=maybe] y
$

It sets REPLY to y (inside the script).