URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?66363>
Summary: "test" builtin command, -a arg not working as
expected
Group: The GNU Bourne-Again SHell
Submitter: None
Submitted: Mon 21 Oct 2024 10:18:53 AM UTC
Category: None
Severity: 3 - Normal
Item Group: None
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Any
_______________________________________________________
Follow-up Comments:
-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon 21 Oct 2024 10:18:53 AM UTC By: Anonymous
$ test -n "" -a x -ge 4
bash: test: x: integer expression expected
In the above shown, output, bash correctly reports that "x" isn't right as it
expects an integer on the left hand side of the -ge arg. However, I do not
expect bash to evaluate the expression on the right side of the -a arg as the
left side of the -a arg should always evaluate to false (therefore the right
side expression should not be evaluated, IMO).
This issue came up in practice when I did something like this:
$ if test -n "$2" -a "$2" -ge 4; then
I was making sure an 2nd argument was supplied to my script before doing any
integer comparisons on it.
I ended up working around the issue by changing the line to something like:
$ if test -n "$2" && test "$2" -ge 4; then
I think this is the second time I've been caught out by this unexpected
behavior of the test command.
Cheers
_______________________________________________________
Reply to this item at:
<https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?66363>
_______________________________________________
Message sent via Savannah
https://savannah.gnu.org/
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
