Re: function grammar

[Linda Walsh]

The curly brackets are suposed to be optional. 

They are line "2" of the Compound commands list below...
Clark J. Wang wrote:
On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 2:53 AM, Linda Walsh <b...@tlinx.org 
<mailto:b...@tlinx.org>> wrote:



    from man bash, to define a function use;

    "function" "name" <compound-command>
     OR
    "name" () <compound-command>

    right?

    And Compound Commands are:

     ( <list>)
     { <list>; )
     (( expression ))
     [[ expression ]]
    ...et al....

    so why do I get a syntax error for

    function good_dir [[ -n $1 && -d $1 && -r $1  && -x $1 ]]

    bash: syntax error near unexpected token `[['

You should enclose the function body code in between `{' and `}':

function good_dir { [[ -n $1 && -d $1 && -r $1  && -x $1 ]]; }