rp="Operating system name?" . ./myread case "$ans" in none) osname='' ;; *) echo "AAAA: ans='${ans}', sed='${sed}', Here is tr:" cat ./tr echo "BBBB: done cat tr" osname=`echo "$ans" | $sed -e 's/[ ][ ]*/_/g' | ./tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'` echo "CCCC: osname='${osname}'" ;; esac echo " " echo "XXXXXX out of case with this osname='${osname}'"