9 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2023
  2. Dec 2022
  3. Nov 2022
  4. Feb 2021
  5. Nov 2020
    1. Important caveat: in the combined expression, if the middle command has a non-zero exit status, then both the middle and the rightmost command end up getting executed.

      I don't think that is surprising, is it? Since && and || have the same order of precedence. So I think this is more of a clarification than a caveat.

      I think this is just because:

      a && b || c is equivalent to: (a && b) || c (so of course c gets evaluated if (a && b) is false (that if either a or b is false).

      I think they just mean, in this case:

      bedmap && mv || fail
      

      if mv fails, then fail still gets executed.

      Easier to see with a simpler example:

      ⟫ true && false || echo 'fail'
      fail
      
      ⟫ false && true || echo 'fail'
      fail
      

      Better example/explanation here: https://hyp.is/-foxmCVXEeuhnLM-le_R4w/mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls

      The caveat/mistake here is if you treat it / think that it is equivalent to if a then b else c. That is not the case if b has any chance of failing.

    1. The potential problem: if second_task fails, third_task will not run, and execution will continue to the next line of code - next_task, in this example. This may be exactly the behavior you want. Alternatively, you may be intending that if second_task fails, the script should immediately exit with its error code. In this case, the best choice is to use a block - i.e., curly braces: first_task && { second_task third_task } next_task Because we are using the -e option, if second_task fails, the script immediately exits.
  6. Sep 2020
  7. May 2020