Doug McNutt wrote: >At 20:48 -0500 5/23/05, Cloyce D. Spradling wrote: > > >> if [ "$FOO" = bar ]; then >> >>you probably thought that it was all internal. Not so! The above is >>equivalent to >> >> if test "$FOO" = bar; then >> >>That link to '[' is an important part of the above recipe. All the shell >>does is ignore the ']'. :) >> >> > > And note that the space after the [ is required. I know of no other language that treats spaces that way. When I have to program in bash I regularly forget the space with disastrous consequences. tcsh has it right. > > > For random informative bits, [ is a shell builtin on bash. At least on my Linux workstation, my iBook is too far away for me to check, and i'm lazy. supernaut at ewigkeit bin $ type [ [ is a shell builtin supernaut at ewigkeit bin $ -- Alexandre Gauthier supernaut at underwares.org underwares.org Obscure IT knowledge Open Database The human brain operates at only 10% of its capacity. The rest is overhead for the operating system.