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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting WHy the double square brackets? Post 302265764 by methyl on Monday 8th of December 2008 12:54:49 PM
Old 12-08-2008
Single brackets.
Please see "man test" for a good explanation about testing file types.
Single square bracket syntax "[ expr ]" is exactly the same as "test expr".
In many shells "test" is actually a shell builtin.
Within "test" the -a is the logical AND operator (as distinct from -o which is the logical OR operator).


Now for double brackets!

There is a formal unix shell syntax involving "[[ expression ]]" which has much overlap with "test". There is a good explanation in "man ksh" . The term between the brackets is a Conditional Expression which is also explained at great length in "man ksh" - including the use of double-ampersand for logical AND "&&", and double pipe for logical OR "||".

Personally I only find use for "[[ expression ]]" in "while" loops. Others may differ.
while [[ expression ]]
do
done
 

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test(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   test(1)

Name
       test - test conditional expression

Syntax
       test expr
       [ expr ]

Description
       The  command  evaluates the expression expr.  If the value of expr is true, the command returns a zero exit status; otherwise, it returns a
       nonzero exit status.  The command also returns a nonzero exit status if no arguments are specified.

Options
       The following primitives are used to construct expr:

       -r file		   Tests if the file exists and is readable.

       -w file		   Tests if the file exists and is writable.

       -f file		   Tests if the file exists and is not a directory.

       -d file		   Tests if the file exists and is a directory.

       -s file		   Tests if the file exists and has a size greater than zero.

       -t [ fildes ]	   Tests if the open file, whose file descriptor number is fildes (1 by default), is associated with a terminal device.

       -z s1		   Tests if the length of string s1 is zero.

       -n s1		   Tests if the length of the string s1 is nonzero.

       s1 = s2		   Tests if the strings s1 and s2 are equal.

       s1 != s2 	   Tests if the strings s1 and s2 are not equal.

       s1		   Tests if s1 is not the null string.

       n1 -eq n2	   Tests if number1 equals number2.

       n1 -ge n2	   Tests if number1 is greater than or equal to number2.

       n1 -gt n2	   Tests if number1 is greater than number2.

       n1 -le n2	   Tests if number1 is less than or equal to number2.

       n1 -lt n2	   Tests if number1 is less than number2.

       n1 -ne n2	   Tests if number1 is not equal to number2.

       These primitives can be combined with the following operators:

       !expr		   Negates evaluation of expression.

       expr -a expr	   Tests logical and of two expressions.

       expr -o expr	   Tests logical or of two expressions.

       ( expr... )	   Groups expressions.

       The -a operator takes precedence over the -o operator.  Note that all the operators and flags are separate  arguments  to  Note	also  that
       parentheses are meaningful to the Shell and must be escaped.

See Also
       find(1), sh(1), test(1sh5)

																	   test(1)
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