Ubuntu – Convert multiline bash script to an one line

The problem is that || and && only skip one subsequent stanza of a command chain when the condition fails. If you write out a full block structure it makes perfect sense. What you wrote becomes this:

if ! true ; then
   echo "This shouldn't print"
else
   exit
fi

What you want is this:

if ! true ; then
   echo "This shouldn't print"
   exit
fi

When you are using Bash's shortcut conditional operators it is better to avoid mixing them. The logic is much easier to understand while you're writing it, and your readers will appreciate your good style.

• http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide/TestsAndConditionals#Control_Operators
• http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls#cmd1_.26.26_cmd2_.7C.7C_cmd3

The main problem is here:

read $input

In bash, usually, $foo is the value of the variable foo. Here, you don't want the value, but the name of the variable, so it should be just:

read input

Similarly, in the if tests, $yes and $no should be just yes and no, since you just want the strings yes and no there.

You could use a case statement here, which (IMHO) makes it easier to do multiple cases based on input:

case $input in
[Yy]es)    # The first character can be Y or y, so both Yes and yes work
    echo "Hello!"  
    echo "Hello!" | festival --tts
    ;;
[Nn]o)     # no or No
    echo "Are you sure?"
    echo "Are you sure?" | festival --tts
    ;;
*)         # Anything else
    echo "Please answer yes or no."
    echo "Please answer yes or no." | festival --tts
    ;;
esac

You could wrap the two echo statements and the use of festival in a function to avoid repeating yourself:

textAndSpeech ()
{
    echo "$@"
    echo "$@" | festival --tts
}
case $input in
[Yy]es)    # The first character can be Y or y, so both Yes and yes work
    textAndSpeech "Hello!"  
    ;;
[Nn]o)     # no or No
    textAndSpeech "Are you sure?"
    ;;
*)         # Anything else
    textAndSpeech "Please answer yes or no."
    ;;
esac

With $input, bash replaces this with its value, which is nothing initially, so the read command run is:

read 

And read by default stores the input in the variable REPLY. So you can, if you want, eliminate the input variable altogether and use $REPLY instead of $input.

Also have a look at the select statement in Bash.