How to Do a Logical or Operation for Integer Comparison in Shell Scripting?

I am trying to do a simple condition check, but it doesn't seem to work.

If $# is equal to 0 or is greater than 1 then say hello.

I have tried the following syntax with no success:

if [ "$#" == 0 -o "$#" > 1 ] ; then
 echo "hello"
fi

if [ "$#" == 0 ] || [ "$#" > 1 ] ; then
 echo "hello"
fi
5

8 Answers

This should work:

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$#" -eq 0 ] || [ "$#" -gt 1 ] ; then
    echo "hello"
fi

I'm not sure if this is different in other shells but if you wish to use <, >, you need to put them inside double parenthesis like so:

if (("$#" > 1))
 ...
2

This code works for me:

#!/bin/sh

argc=$#
echo $argc
if [ $argc -eq 0 -o $argc -eq 1 ]; then
  echo "foo"
else
  echo "bar"
fi

I don't think sh supports "==". Use "=" to compare strings and -eq to compare ints.

man test

for more details.

4

If you are using the bash exit code status $? as variable, it's better to do this:

if [ $? -eq 4 -o $? -eq 8 ] ; then  
   echo "..."
fi

Because if you do:

if [ $? -eq 4 ] || [ $? -eq 8 ] ; then  

The left part of the OR alters the $? variable, so the right part of the OR doesn't have the original $? value.

1

Sometimes you need to use double brackets, otherwise you get an error like too many arguments

if [[ $OUTMERGE == *"fatal"* ]] || [[ $OUTMERGE == *"Aborting"* ]]
  then
fi
2

If a bash script

If [[ $input -gt number  ||  $input  -lt number  ]]
then 
    echo .........
else
    echo .........

fi

exit

have you tried something like this:

if [ $# -eq 0 ] || [ $# -gt 1 ] 
then
 echo "$#"
fi
2

From Bash Reference Manual → 3.4.2 Special Parameters

#
($#) Expands to the number of positional parameters in decimal.

Therefore, $# will always be either 0 or a bigger integer.

So if you want to do something whenever $# is either 0 or bigger than 1, you just have to check if $# is or is not 1:

[ $# -eq 1 ] && echo "1 positional param" || echo "0 or more than 1"

This uses the syntax:

[ condition ] && {things if true} || {things if false}
2

And in Bash

 line1=`tail -3 /opt/Scripts/wowzaDataSync.log | grep "AmazonHttpClient" | head -1`
 vpid=`ps -ef|  grep wowzaDataSync | grep -v grep  | awk '{print $2}'`
 echo "-------->"${line1}
    if [ -z $line1 ] && [ ! -z $vpid ]
    then
            echo `date --date "NOW" +%Y-%m-%d` `date --date "NOW" +%H:%M:%S` :: 
            "Process Is Working Fine"
    else
            echo `date --date "NOW" +%Y-%m-%d` `date --date "NOW" +%H:%M:%S` :: 
            "Prcess Hanging Due To Exception With PID :"${pid}
   fi

OR in Bash

line1=`tail -3 /opt/Scripts/wowzaDataSync.log | grep "AmazonHttpClient" | head -1`
vpid=`ps -ef|  grep wowzaDataSync | grep -v grep  | awk '{print $2}'`
echo "-------->"${line1}
   if [ -z $line1 ] || [ ! -z $vpid ]
    then
            echo `date --date "NOW" +%Y-%m-%d` `date --date "NOW" +%H:%M:%S` :: 
            "Process Is Working Fine"
    else
            echo `date --date "NOW" +%Y-%m-%d` `date --date "NOW" +%H:%M:%S` :: 
            "Prcess Hanging Due To Exception With PID :"${pid}
  fi

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David Miller

David Miller

Executive Financial & Market Analyst

David Miller brings 15 years of experience in global economics, personal finance strategy, and market dynamics. He specializes in turning complex economic trends into actionable insights for everyday readers.

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