Re: Docco

[Chet Ramey]

On 3/27/24 5:00 AM, Phi Debian wrote:
> $ man bash
> ...
> CONDITIONAL EXPRESSIONS
> ...
>
>         -a file
>                True if file exists.
>         -e file
>                True if file exists.
> ...
>
> 'May be' would be nice for newbies to precise which options are [ specific
> vs [[ specific for instance

All the unary and binary primaries described there are available with both
`[[' and `test'.

>         -a file
>                True if file exists ([[ only, for [ see test builtin)

This would not be accurate. `-a' is deprecated but still accepted as a
unary primary.

> This to avoid things like
>
> $ [   -a /tmp ] && echo ok || echo nok
> ok
> $ [ ! -a /tmp ] && echo ok || echo nok
> ok

`test' works on the number of arguments, so these can be expected to be
different.

> I know it is obvious, unless this is intended to force a complete
> multi-pass man read...

The [[ and test descriptions document the differences.

--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/