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Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/help/test')
| -rw-r--r-- | Doc/help/test | 20 |
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/help/test b/Doc/help/test new file mode 100644 index 000000000..9abe33fd4 --- /dev/null +++ b/Doc/help/test @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +test [ arg ... ] +[ [ arg ... ] ] + Like the system version of test. Added for compatibility; use + conditional expressions instead (see the section `Conditional + Expressions'). The main differences between the conditional ex- + pression syntax and the test and [ builtins are: these commands + are not handled syntactically, so for example an empty variable + expansion may cause an argument to be omitted; syntax errors + cause status 2 to be returned instead of a shell error; and + arithmetic operators expect integer arguments rather than arith- + metic expressions. + + The command attempts to implement POSIX and its extensions where + these are specified. Unfortunately there are intrinsic ambigui- + ties in the syntax; in particular there is no distinction be- + tween test operators and strings that resemble them. The stan- + dard attempts to resolve these for small numbers of arguments + (up to four); for five or more arguments compatibility cannot be + relied on. Users are urged wherever possible to use the `[[' + test syntax which does not have these ambiguities. |