Linux shell get device id from user input

Question

I am working on an install script for a program that needs the device id from lsusb in it's configuration so I was thinking of doing the following:

$usblist=(lsusb)
#put the list into a array for each line.
#use the array to give the user a selection list usinging whiptail.
#from that line strip out the device id and vender id from the selected line.

Sorry I haven't gotten very far with my code but I am stuck on this and have no idea how to do what I would like to do. Please can someone help. I am very new to shell scripting

Answer 1

To extract the device IDs from lsusb, the following line can be used:

lsusb | awk '{ print $6 }'

If you need to store the IDs within an array, use the line below:

mapfile -t device_ids < <(lsusb | awk '{ print $6 }')

Accessing the first element in the device_ids array: echo ${device_ids[0]}

Answer 2

Using whiptail for choosing USB device

For preparing whiptail or dialog command, with USB ID as TAG and description as item, you could create a little sub-shell:

read usbdev < <(
    declare -a array=()
    while read foo{,,,,} id dsc;do
        array+=($id "$dsc")
      done < <(lsusb)
    whiptail --menu 'Select USB device' 20 76 12 "${array[@]}" 2>&1 >/dev/tty
)

Nota:

• The $array variable won't exist outside of the scope of subshell.
• As $array is populated by ($id "$dsc") and used by "${array[@]}", space in description won't break item list.
• syntax read foo{,,,} id dsc will read output of lsub by line, space separated, dropping 5 first words, assigning 6th word to id and rest of line to dsc.

This could render something like:

Then

echo $usbdev 
1d6b:0002

You could find more sample using whiptail, dialog and other ways at How do I prompt for Yes/No/Cancel input in a Linux shell script? and USB removable storage selector: USBKeyChooser