Emulating a do-while loop in Bash

Question

What is the best way to emulate a do-while loop in Bash?

I could check for the condition before entering the while loop, and then continue re-checking the condition in the loop, but that's duplicated code. Is there a cleaner way?

Pseudo code of my script:

while [ current_time <= $cutoff ]; do
    check_if_file_present
    #do other stuff
done

This doesn't perform check_if_file_present if launched after the $cutoff time, and a do-while would.

Answer 1

Two simple solutions:

1. Execute your code once before the while loop

   actions() {
      check_if_file_present
      # Do other stuff
   }
   
   actions #1st execution
   while [ current_time <= $cutoff ]; do
      actions # Loop execution
   done
   

2. Or:

   while : ; do
       actions
       [[ current_time <= $cutoff ]] || break
   done
   

Answer 2

Place the body of your loop after the while and before the test. The actual body of the while loop should be a no-op.

while 
    check_if_file_present
    #do other stuff
    (( current_time <= cutoff ))
do
    :
done

Instead of the colon, you can use continue if you find that more readable. You can also insert a command that will only run between iterations (not before first or after last), such as echo "Retrying in five seconds"; sleep 5. Or print delimiters between values:

i=1; while printf '%d' "$((i++))"; (( i <= 4)); do printf ','; done; printf '\n'

I changed the test to use double parentheses since you appear to be comparing integers. Inside double square brackets, comparison operators such as <= are lexical and will give the wrong result when comparing 2 and 10, for example. Those operators don't work inside single square brackets.

Answer 3

This implementation:

• Has no code duplication
• Doesn't require extra functions()
• Doesn't depend on the return value of code in the "while" section of the loop:

do=true
while $do || conditions; do
  do=false
  # your code ...
done

It works with a read loop, too, skipping the first read:

do=true
while $do || read foo; do
  do=false

  # your code ...
  echo $foo
done

Answer 4

We can emulate a do-while loop in Bash with while [[condition]]; do true; done like this:

while [[ current_time <= $cutoff ]]
    check_if_file_present
    #do other stuff
do true; done

For an example. Here is my implementation on getting ssh connection in bash script:

#!/bin/bash
while [[ $STATUS != 0 ]]
    ssh-add -l &>/dev/null; STATUS="$?"
    if [[ $STATUS == 127 ]]; then echo "ssh not instaled" && exit 0;
    elif [[ $STATUS == 2 ]]; then echo "running ssh-agent.." && eval `ssh-agent` > /dev/null;
    elif [[ $STATUS == 1 ]]; then echo "get session identity.." && expect $HOME/agent &> /dev/null;
    else ssh-add -l && git submodule update --init --recursive --remote --merge && return 0; fi
do true; done

It will give the output in sequence as below:

Step #0 - "gcloud": intalling expect..
Step #0 - "gcloud": running ssh-agent..
Step #0 - "gcloud": get session identity..
Step #0 - "gcloud": 4096 SHA256:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX /builder/home/.ssh/id_rsa (RSA)
Step #0 - "gcloud": Submodule '.google/cloud/compute/home/chetabahana/.docker/compose' (git@github.com:chetabahana/compose) registered for path '.google/cloud/compute/home/chetabahana/.docker/compose'
Step #0 - "gcloud": Cloning into '/workspace/.io/.google/cloud/compute/home/chetabahana/.docker/compose'...
Step #0 - "gcloud": Warning: Permanently added the RSA host key for IP address 'XXX.XX.XXX.XXX' to the list of known hosts.
Step #0 - "gcloud": Submodule path '.google/cloud/compute/home/chetabahana/.docker/compose': checked out '24a28a7a306a671bbc430aa27b83c09cc5f1c62d'
Finished Step #0 - "gcloud"

Answer 5

There are lots of good answers here, but they all seem to be more complex than they need to be. I believe the simplest way to do this would be to seed the variable being tested so that thee first check passes.

cutoff="maxtime"
while [ current_time <= $cutoff ]; do
        check_if_file_present
        #do other stuff
done

In this instance, "maxtime" would be the maximum possible time that it could be. Of course, the exact format/value would depend on what the "current_time" command/script/function generates.