What is the Bash equivalent of Python's pass statement

Question

Is there a Bash equivalent to the Python's pass statement?

score 194 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 10 '10 at 23:55

194

You can use : for this.

answered Mar 10 '10 at 23:55

6

More info: [Stack Overflow: What is the purpose of the : (colon) GNU Bash builtin?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3224878/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-colon-gnu-bash-builtin) – ki9 Mar 09 '18 at 03:04

score 52 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 11 '10 at 00:07

52

true is a command that successfully does nothing.

(false would, in a way, be the opposite: it doesn't do anything, but claims that a failure occurred.)

answered Mar 11 '10 at 00:07

sth

62

In other words, it does nothing, and fails at it. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 11 '10 at 00:09
2

@Ignacio: I was struggling with the language there: Can "it fails at doing nothing" be interpreted as "it, erroneously, does something"? ...Probably I'm just scared by things like the subtle differences between "undefined" and "unspecified" in C++. – sth Mar 11 '10 at 00:37
By the way there is a `man true` and a `man false`. – ChameleonScales Oct 17 '21 at 21:47

2 Answers2