As far as I can tell, the : command does nothing.
From the bash's help ::
:: :
Null command.
No effect; the command does nothing.
Exit Status:
Always succeeds.
Yet, I've found some people make use of the command for something else, for instance:
: ${var:=something}
My first guess is that is some "hacky" thing people do to do something.
Where can I find any documentation about it? Are there any other usage of it?
':'returns nothing from my end. – annahri Jul 04 '23 at 15:17