More ancillary Bash tips - 10

Making decisions in Bash

This is my tenth contribution to the Bash Scripting series under the heading of Bash Tips. The previous episodes are listed below in the Links section.

We are currently looking at decision making in Bash, and in the last episode we examined the tests themselves. In this episode we’ll look at the constructs that use these tests: looping constructs, conditional constructs and lists of commands.

Note: this episode and the preceding one were originally recorded as a single episode, but because it was so long it was split into two. As a consequence the audio contains references to examples such as bash9_ex2.sh where the true name is bash10_ex1.sh. The notes have been updated as necessary but not the audio.

Long notes

I have provided detailed notes as usual for this episode, and these can be viewed here.

Links

• “GNU BASH Reference Manual”
  • “Bash Looping Constructs”
  • “Bash Conditional Constructs”
  • “Bourne Shell Builtins”
• HPR series: Bash Scripting
• Previous episodes under the heading Bash Tips:
  1. HPR episode 1648 “Bash parameter manipulation”
  2. HPR episode 1843 “Some Bash tips”
  3. HPR episode 1884 “Some more Bash tips”
  4. HPR episode 1903 “Some further Bash tips”
  5. HPR episode 1951 “Some additional Bash tips”
  6. HPR episode 2045 “Some other Bash tips”
  7. HPR episode 2278 “Some supplementary Bash tips”
  8. HPR episode 2293 “More supplementary Bash tips”
  9. HPR episode 2639 “Some ancillary Bash tips - 9”
• Resources:
  • Examples: bash10_ex1.sh, bash10_ex2.sh, bash10_ex3.sh