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In if [ ... ], I know that [ stands for test. What does ] stands for?

Helin Wang
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  • https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/408003/70524: "] is just an argument of [ that prevents further arguments from being used." – muru Jan 05 '21 at 04:17
  • This isn't really a duplicate, it's specifically about the ]; a couple of the answers on that other question mention in passing (correctly) that ] is just an argument to the [ command, but they (incorrectly) say it tells [ where the end of the expression is. ] can occur within the expression, but it must (also) occur at the end (i.e. as the last argument to [). Try [ foo = bar or /usr/bin/[ foo = bar, and you'll get an error message from the [ command that "]" is missing. – Gordon Davisson Jan 05 '21 at 04:25
  • @muru As I said, that's wrong. Try if [ ] = foo ]; then echo yes; else echo no; fi vs if [ ] = ] ]; then echo yes; else echo no; fi. In both cases, ] occurs as the first argument to [, but it does not prevent the other arguments from being parsed as part of the expression. – Gordon Davisson Jan 05 '21 at 04:28
  • @GordonDavisson then please update those answers. – muru Jan 05 '21 at 04:30
  • @muru I've left comments for the authors of those answers. However, I'd still argue that this is a different question that happens to overlap -- slightly -- with some of the answers to the other question. – Gordon Davisson Jan 05 '21 at 05:15
  • “I know that [ stands for test” — it doesn’t, [ and test are slightly different (in particular, [ requires ], test doesn’t, and will fail with an extra ]). On my system they aren’t even the same binary. – Stephen Kitt Jan 05 '21 at 10:12

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