UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm not sure I understand 100%, but I read it to mean "Can I run more than one command after "else?"'

Yes. Here's a pseudocode example:

Code:

if [ $something == $somethingelse ]; then
    echo "something equals somethingelse"
    run_another_command_or_function
    return 0
else
    echo "something is not equal to somethingelse! "
    run_yet_another_command
    run_yet_another_another_command
    return 1
fi

Being that it's ksh (and depending on whether it's ksh88 or ksh93,) you can even write that differently. Here's one That would work with the latest ksh:

Code:

((something==somethingelse)) && {
    echo "something equals somethingelse"
    run_another_command_or_function
    return 0
  } || {
    echo "something is not equal to somethingelse! "
    run_yet_another_command
    run_yet_another_another_command
    return 1
}

Like I said, there's many ways to do it - check the man page for ksh to see the capabilities and syntax.

One more thing - in a modern shell, running 'if [ something ]' is not equivalent to running /bin/test. The '[', '[[', '((', etc., commands are typically built in the to the shell, meaning you do not search $PATH nor do you necessarily fork() to run these commands. They're internal to the shell.

The options to /bin/test are likely the same as those in your shell, though, so the man page is of use, just as moderns shells have a built-in 'printf' command, even though a binary exists on disk with similar options/functions (for compatibility reasons.)