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Date:      Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:22:35 -0700
From:      Michael Sierchio <kudzu@tenebras.com>
To:        FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Bourne shell "if" syntax
Message-ID:  <CAHu1Y70FNX8G2ARF5zBzRbu5iMsXVkUCouBk-YruY3xH1gWsqg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <51B62622.1070201@tundraware.com>
References:  <51b620a6.42f.2b6a6400.5605dcf0@go2france.com> <121701ce660c$9a9aa5b0$cfcff110$@freebsd.org> <51B62389.5000500@tundraware.com> <121b01ce660e$2abae5f0$8030b1d0$@freebsd.org> <51B62622.1070201@tundraware.com>

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On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 12:16 PM, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:

> That wasn't really my point.  I use sentinels because in the face of an
> empty string this:
>
>    if [ $PTR = "" ]
>
> Actually evaluates to:
>
>    if [ = "" ]
>
> Which throws an error.

Right.  Many scripts seem to assume that sh is bash, and that's
certainly not the case here.

if [ "x$BLAH" = "x" ]; then

is the most reliable and portable way of determining if it's a string
of zero length.

- M



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