Check if a variable exists in a list in Bash

Question

I am trying to write a script in bash that check the validity of a user input.
I want to match the input (say variable x) to a list of valid values.

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Answer 1

I find it's easier to use the form echo $LIST | xargs -n1 echo | grep $VALUE as illustrated below:

LIST="ITEM1 ITEM2"
VALUE="ITEM1"
if [ -n "`echo $LIST | xargs -n1 echo | grep -e \"^$VALUE`$\" ]; then
    ...
fi

This works for a space-separated list, but you could adapt it to any other delimiter (like :) by doing the following:

LIST="ITEM1:ITEM2"
VALUE="ITEM1"
if [ -n "`echo $LIST | sed 's|:|\\n|g' | grep -e \"^$VALUE`$\"`" ]; then
   ...
fi

Note that the " are required for the test to work.