Fishing for suggestions.

[Joe Murray99]

I hope I am asking this in the correct place.

I have a number of video serials that I have downloaded from the archives. 
They are old but have nice plots.  
What I wanted to do was write a bash script that would keep track of what
episode I was watching and return to the next one what I started the script
again.  I also wanted the script to begin playing the next one if I made no
command to stop playing.

My first attempt at this was to setup a hidden file that would keep track of
the next episode.  I then used a case statement that would branch to the
correct episode that was found in the hidden file.

What I wanted to have happen is if I didn't stop execution of the episode to
have the case staement fall through and play the next episode.  If I did
want to stop watching I could use a goto statement that was controled by the
return value from the player I was using.

Now here is the rub.  It seems that, at least in the version of bash I have
in openSuse 11, the case statement will not fall through.  The ;; at the end
of the list of commands for each section is manditory.  But hey no problem I
can just use a goto and jump back up to run the case statement again or use
a goto to brake out and update the hidden file and end the script.  But alas
goto is not supporten.  Yes I know the goto police will fall from the sky
and do horrible things to my persons but I beleive that goto is a very
important command and when used properly will make code much titghter.

I did think of a solution where I use if statements for each episode number
and the reading of the hidden file will allow only that if statement to run. 
But what happens when I want the next epeisode to automaticly start playing? 
I could set a flag for this and recursively call the script again with the
updated hidden file.  But in my way of looking at code this is ugly.

I could write this in C in just a couple of minutes.  But that's not the
point.  My bash scripting leaves a lot to be learned and this is why I am
using bash in the first place.

So to reiterate the situation.  I have a number, say a dozen, video files
that need to be played in order.  I want to use bash to make this happen.  I
also want to stop exicutuon and return to the place I left when I stopped
exicution.  If I didn't stop exicution I want the next video file to play in
order.  And I want an elegant solution ( that's actually the hard part. ) I
really dislike writting crappy code just so it "works."  In my mind if it
does what one wnats but does in in a crapy way it doesn't "work" well.

Thank you all for your help with this.

In the past I have always fallen back on C for a problem like this, mainly
because I know it, and if I ran into any problems I would pull out Steven's
book, May God rest his sole, and the answer would always be there.  But I
think it's time for me to expand my mind a little.  Not to much but just a
little. 
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