[pacman-dev] [PATCH 1/2] Changing [ to [[ and ((

[Cedric Staniewski]

Allan McRae wrote:
> Cedric Staniewski wrote:
>> We could remove the quotes here, too.
>>
> 
> Hmmm...  can we.  I know we can when there are spaces in a single
> variable, but for some reason I thought quotes were needed when joining
> multiple variables like that.  I could be wrong...
> 

[[ behaves quite different compared to [ in this aspect, but as far as I
know, you do not need quotes to join variables as long as there are no
spaces between the variables ;). There are several exceptions though,
like cd for example, which require quotes even for single variables when
they contain spaces. I think this has something to do with the type of
the command. Builtins/external commands (usually) need quotes whereas
everything else should work without.
In my opinion, it is often not obvious whether they are required or not
which is why I tended to use more quotes than actually were needed. I am
fairly familiar with quoting by now and can use both "quoting styles",
but I think it would probably be a good idea to decide for one. Using
just as much quotes as required would be a little bit shorter, but using
quotes `where possible` may be a little bit more foolproof.

$ a=" a d"
$ b=" e"
$ c=$a:$b
$ echo "$c"
 a d: e
$
$
$ filename="a d e"
$ suffix=".f"
$ [ -e ${filename}${suffix} ] && echo 1
bash: [: too many arguments
$ [[ -e ${filename}${suffix} ]] && echo 1
$ touch "${filename}${suffix}"
$ [[ -e ${filename}${suffix} ]] && echo 1
1
$ [[ -e a d e.f ]] && echo 1
bash: syntax error in conditional expression
bash: syntax error near `d'
$ [[ -e "a d e.f" ]] && echo 1
1