Trying to set rules if a certain variable is put into place, can someone identify wtf I'm missing here?
test.sh:
#!/bin/bash
args=($@)
if [ "$@" = "--cron" ]; then
echo "WORKS!";
else echo "FAILS"
fi
output of ./test.sh:
./test.sh: line 3: [: =: unary operator expected
FAILS
However, when I run ./test.sh --cron, it works, and WORKS is output.
The correct way to do this varies a bit depending on exactly what you're trying to do. If you want to check whether the first argument is --cron, use this:
if [ "$1" = "--cron" ]; then
If you want to check whether the only argument is --cron, use this:
if [ "$*" = "--cron" ]; then
(Note that this is one of very few cases where "$*" is the right way to do something -- it expands to all arguments separated by spaces, but treated as a single word for parsing purposes.)
If you want to check whether any argument is --cron, use this:
cronopt=false
for argument; do
if [ "$argument" = "--cron" ]; then
cronopt=true
break # note: if you are scanning the arguments for other things too, remove this
fi
done
if $cronopt; then
...
BTW, I'm not sure what you're using the args=($@) line for, but if you want to store the arguments in an array the correct way to do it is args=("$@") -- the quotes keep it from doing word splitting, filename expansion, etc before putting the args into the array.
This should work, but only for the first element, of you want more you might have to do a for or while loop to iterate thru the arguments.
#!/bin/bash
args=($1)
if [ $args ] && [ $args = "--cron" ]; then
echo "WORKS!";
else echo "FAILS"
fi
In this case, I believe "$@" is too well quoted.
Try comparing against "$1", or use:
#!/bin/bash
args=($@)
if [ "$*" = "--cron" ]; then
echo "WORKS!";
else
echo "FAILS"
fi
