With braces I'd prefer the test syntax actually, this is too many special characters to be comfortably readable for me. And yes I know it creates subshells, th

With braces I'd prefer the test syntax actually, this is too many special characters to be comfortably readable for me. And yes I know it creates subshells, that was precisely what I was saying in my comment where I said the simplest syntax I could think of (i.e. that very code) creates subshells.