Testing Shell Conditions

When you're shell scripting you really want to get your head wrapped around conditions. GNU provides a command to test conditions.

test 1 -gt 0
# exits with exit code 0
echo $?
# prints 0
test 0 -gt 1
# exits with exit code 1
echo $?
# prints 1

Checking the $? env var is a bit awkward, you can chain the command with echo though.

test 1 -gt 0 && echo true
# outputs true

Just be aware that it doesn't output false when false.

But if you're chaining with && you might as well use the [[ compound command.

[[ 1 -gt 0]] && echo true
# outputs true

Now you're using shell syntax directly.

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