Bourne/bash shell scripts: if statement syntax

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From the computer of: Rex (39 recipes)
Created: Oct 20, 2003     Updated: Aug 30, 2004


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Conditional expressions give programs life. The ability to branch makes shell scripts powerful. This recipe shows the basic if then else structure for sh, ksh, bash, zsh, etc.

if [ condition_A ]
then
   code to run if condition_A true
elif [ condition_B ]
then
   code to run if condition_A false and condition_B true
else
   code to run if both conditions false
fi


Multiple elif blocks can be strung together to make an elaborate set of conditional responses.

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