Usually though in a bash script you want to check if the argument is empty rather than if it is not empty, to do this you can use the -z operator. [ -c FILE] True if FILE exists and is a character-special file. The -z operator is the opposite of -n, you could get the same results by performing this if statement with the ! All commands after this will be run as normal. If a script ends with exit 0, it will exit with the code 0 only if that last instruction was executed. Line 8 - fi signals the end of the if statement. If N is not given, the exit status code is that of the last executed command.. Most of the time the output of a command ends with the newline character. else –» and this is the other “flag” that tells bash that if the statement above was not true (false), then execute the command here instead. [ -e FILE] True if FILE exists. The only impact of exit 0 at the end of the script is to return 0 instead of the status from the previous instruction. The bash scripting language uses this convention to mark the end of a complex expression, such as an if statement or case statement. [ -g FILE] True if FILE exists and its SGID bit is set. Example: root@hostname [~] # echo -n hello helloroot@hostname [~] # I've always found that very annoying. Numeric and String Comparison. Examples #. The shell options set on the first line will make the bash shell enable extended globbing patterns (! ; pidof command – Find the process ID of a running program on Linux or Unix-like system; ps command – Get information about the currently running Linux or Unix processes, including … Line 6 - The backslash ( \ ) in front of the single quote ( ' ) is needed as the single quote has a special meaning for bash and we don't want that special meaning. Of course, you may wish to do more detailed testing. [ -f FILE] True if FILE exists and is a regular file. For example: Bash commands to check running process: pgrep command – Looks through the currently running bash processes on Linux and lists the process IDs (PID) on screen. Primary Meaning [ -a FILE] True if FILE exists. If that is a fair assessment, then I would recommend testing the string to see if it does refer to a directory or not. The fact that a string ends in a slash does not mean that the string refers to a directory. The backslash escapes the special meaning to make it a normal plain single quote again. Using test or [with the predicate -d is of value here. echo 'odd' –» it prints “odd” to your screen fi –» end of the if statement. If offset evaluates to a number less than zero, the value is used as an offset from the end of the value of parameter. The echo statement prints its argument, in this case, the value of the variable count, to the terminal window. You can compare number and string in a bash script and have a conditional if loop based on it. End every if statement with the fi statement. @Hatclock No, not at all. [ -d FILE] True if FILE exists and is a directory. The following example sets a variable and tests the value of the variable using the if statement. if [ -z $1 ] then echo "sorry you didn't give me a value" exit 2 fi If value is not true. (*.txt) to match all names not ending with .txt), it enables glob patterns to match hidden names, and it makes the pattern expand to nothing at all if nothing matches. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Sep 6 '16 at 22:08 Bash check if process is running or not. The then statement is placed on the same line with the if. [ -b FILE] True if FILE exists and is a block-special file. When working with Bash and shell scripting, you might need to use conditions in your script.. In programming, conditions are crucial : they are used to assert whether some conditions are true or not.. If parameter is @, the result is length positional parameters beginning at offset. 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