Bourne/bash shell scripts: case statement
Contributed by Rex 
October 22, 2003 
Tagged: Bourne shell scripting
The case statement is an elegant replacement for if/then/else if/else statements when making numerous comparisons. This recipe describes the case statement syntax for the Bourne shells (sh, ksh, bash, zsh, etc.).
case "$var" in
value1)
commands;
;;
value2)
commands;
;;
*)
commands;
;;
esac
The case statement compares the value of the variable ($var in this case) to one or more values (value1, value2, …). Once a match is found, the associated commands are executed and the case statement is terminated. The optional last comparison *) is a default case and will match anything.
For example, branching on a command line parameter to the script, such as ’start’ or ’stop’ with a runtime control script. The following example uses the first command line parameter ($1):
case "$1" in
'start')
/usr/app/startup-script
;;
'stop')
/usr/app/shutdown-script
;;
'restart')
echo "Usage: $0 [start|stop]"
;;
esac