bash, dash and string comparison

user_41983 0
Viewed 43934

I am trying to compare two strings in a simple shell script. I was using /bin/sh instead of /bin/bash, and after countless hours of debugging, it turns out sh (which is actually dash) can't handle this block of code: 

if [ "$var" == "string" ]
then
    do something
fi

What is a portable way to compare strings using /bin/sh? I know I can always do the opposite by using !=, but I am wondering about a cleaner, portable way.

string-comparison dash-shell bash
5 Answers

dash is a very strict POSIX shell, if it work in dash it is almost certain it would work in other POSIX shell.

Try:

if [ "$var" = "string" ]
then
    some_command
fi
user_884420

Why is there even a possibility that your script will be run by the "wrong" shell? I would think you could make that a pre-requisite of your product by using the standard sh-bang line at the top of your script:

#!/bin/bash

Even if a user uses a different shell, the other shells are generally still there and, if not, simply complain and state that they are a pre-req.

Exactly the same way that a specific kernel level, or the existence of awk, can be a pre-req.

For your specific question, I believe both sh and bash allow the single '=' to be used for string comparisons - that is POSIX behavior:

if [ "a" = "a" ] ; then
    echo yes
fi

yes
user_148600

Use = instead of ==. Comparisons are handled by test(1). /usr/bin/[ is typically a link to /usr/bin/test . The only difference is that if you use [ in a shell script, the ] is required as well.

Note that bash has a built-in test/[, so it doesn't actually use /usr/bin/test.

skoob_207080

you can use awk

awk 'BEGIN{
 string1="test"
 string2="tes1t"
 if(s1==s2){
    print "same string"
 }else{
    print "not same"
 }
}'
user_1315270
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