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Vidar Holen edited this page Sep 2, 2020 · 2 revisions

In POSIX sh, == in place of = is undefined.

(or "In dash, ... is not supported." when using dash)

Problematic code:

#!/bin/sh
if [ $1 == "-n" ]
then
  dry_run=1
fi

Correct code:

#!/bin/sh
if [ $1 = "-n" ]
then
  dry_run=1
fi

Rationale:

== is used for equality comparison in C-like languages, and is also supported by bash and ksh in [ .. ] and test expressions.

sh and dash only supports = for equality comparison, so use that instead.

Exceptions:

If you only intend to target shells that supports this feature, you can change the shebang to a shell that guarantees support, or ignore this warning.

You can use # shellcheck disable=SC3000-SC4000 to ignore all such compatibility warnings.

Related resources:

  • Help by adding links to BashFAQ, StackOverflow, man pages, POSIX, etc!

ShellCheck

Each individual ShellCheck warning has its own wiki page like SC1000. Use GitHub Wiki's "Pages" feature above to find a specific one, or see Checks.

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