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Nooo! Mistake #0 about shell scripting is thinking [ is syntax. It makes it way more weird and inexplicable. [ is a command, just like any other. That's why the

Nooo! Mistake #0 about shell scripting is thinking [ is syntax. It makes it way more weird and inexplicable. [ is a command, just like any other. That's why there needs to be a space between it and the next thing, and why you have to use weird looking flags and such. This is why I prefer the command `test`. It does the same thing as `[`, but is more obviously a command. And when you see it as a command, it's obvious that any command can be used in an if directly; if is just checking the exit code. (Whenever I see someone doing `if [ $? -ne 0 ]`, it makes me cry.)

manicdee 12y ago
test is [
- kl4m 12y ago
  Indeed, "test" is exactly like "[" except that it doesn't check that its last argument is a "]".
  - vacri 12y ago
    For some reason I've always been amused by "which [". The idea of 'punctuation' being a command or a filename is something that threw me.
jsmeaton 12y ago
I'll bite. What should we be using instead of `if [ $? -ne 0 ]`? Because that's pretty standard in my (admittedly very basic) bash.
- schoen 12y ago
  Instead of somecommand if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then echo "it failed"; fi the parent commenter presumably wants to see if ! somecommand; then echo "it failed"; fi
  - viraptor 12y ago
    Or: somecommand || echo "it failed" if it's just one statement. There are some cases where it just looks more natural. For example: start_service || log "already started"
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
JetSpiegel 12y ago
> when you see it as a command, it's obvious that any command can be used in an if directly; if is just checking the exit code One of the best days of my life