Where is the manpage for [[?

Question

I'm trying to find the man page for [[ (double-brackets).

Apparently man test only documents test and [.

Are the conditionals for [[ and [ are exactly the same?

I think here it is! https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Conditional-Expressions.html — , Sep 05 '18 at 21:37

Kusalananda · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-05T21:48:55.723

6

Since [[ is part of the bash grammar and [ is a command built into the shell, both are documented in the bash manual itself.

[[ is documented under SHELL GRAMMAR/Compound Commands and also under CONDITIONAL EXPRESSIONS (as is [), and [ is further documented together with the test built in command under SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS.

The test manual that you read with man test documents the external test and [ commands, probably available as /usr/bin/test and /usr/bin/[ (or possibly under /bin depending on what Unix you use).

What is the difference between the Bash operators [[ vs [ vs ( vs ((?

edited Sep 05 '18 at 21:48

answered Sep 05 '18 at 21:43

Kusalananda

333,661

In the manual, easiest would be to use the index. In info, use i, in HTML, see there. In PS/PDF printout, see at the end of the book. Don't use man for a manual of this size, there's a reason why it's called a man page. – Stéphane Chazelas Sep 05 '18 at 22:14

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 06 '18 at 02:45

3

Also useful is the help builtin. This will print 22 lines of info about [[:
```
help [[
```
The [ and [[ are significantly different. See What's the difference between [ and [[ in Bash?

answered Sep 06 '18 at 02:45

agc

7,223

Where is the manpage for [[?

2 Answers2