B. Reference Cards (Revision #6)

The following reference cards provide a useful summary of certain scripting concepts. The foregoing text treats these matters in more depth, as well as giving usage examples.

Table B-1. Special Shell Variables

Variable	Meaning
$0	Filename of script
$1	Positional parameter #1
$2 - $9	Positional parameters #2 - #9
${10}	Positional parameter #10
$#	Number of positional parameters
"$*"	All the positional parameters (as a single word) *
"$@"	All the positional parameters (as separate strings)
"$@"	All the positional parameters (as separate strings)
${#*}	Number of positional parameters
${#@}	Number of positional parameters
$?	Return value
$$	Process ID (PID) of script
$-	Flags passed to script (using set)
$_	Last argument of previous command
$!	Process ID (PID) of last job run in background

* Must be quoted, otherwise it defaults to $@.

Table B-2. TEST Operators: Binary Comparison

Operator	Tests Whether	-----	Operator	Tests Whether
Arithmetic Comparison			String Comparison
-eq	Equal to		=	Equal to
			==	Equal to
-ne	Not equal to		!=	Not equal to
-lt	Less than		\<	Less than (ASCII) *
-le	Less than or equal to
-gt	Greater than		\>	Greater than (ASCII) *
-ge	Greater than or equal to
			-z	String is empty
			-n	String is not empty

Arithmetic Comparison	within double parentheses (( ... ))
>	Greater than
>=	Greater than or equal to
<	Less than
<=	Less than or equal to

* If within a double-bracket [[ ... ]] test construct, then no escape \ is needed.

Table B-3. TEST Operators: Files

Operator	Tests Whether	-----	Operator	Tests Whether
-e	File exists		-s	File is not zero size
-f	File is a regular file
-d
-h
-L
-b
-c
-p
-S
-t

-N
-O
-G				Files F1 and F2 are hard links to the same file *

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Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide / raghavsingh

B. Reference Cards (Revision #6)

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B. Reference Cards (Revision #6)