n a negative `offset' begins with a minus sign, however, unexpected things can happen. Consider
<cod... The problem is that ${param:-word} already has a well-defined meaning: expand to word if the expanded... , return its value; otherwise print varname: followed by message, and abort the current command or scr... mmand-line arguments in case the user omits them. We'll use the first one in our first programming tas
test brackets (see Example 7-6) normally works, however, this is an unsafe practice. Always quote a te... integers or strings.
# There is some blurring between the arithmetic and string comparisons,
#+ since... of all-integer characters.
# Caution advised, however.
echo
if [ "$a" -ne "$b" ]
then
echo "$a i... tor alone detects whether the string is null.
# However it is good practice to quote it (if [ "$string
