TIL: ternary in bash

Oct 8, 2016

1 minute read

I have been working with shell scripts for 4-5 years now, and I only recently saw, for the first time, someone shortcut the classic if/else/then statements:

[ $condition == "true" ] && echo "true" || echo "false"

It took me a few minutes of staring at it to make sure it works the way I think it works.

Having seen this though, I am of the opinion that it’s probably better to be a bit more verbose:

if [ $condition == "true" ]; then
  echo "true"
else
  echo "false"
fi

I think it’s more natural, easier to read and understand, better for the next guy/gal who needs to read and decipher your script.

Simon So