choice of control operators in scripts

[Denys Vlasenko]

On Tuesday 13 May 2008 14:28, Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn wrote:
> On Tue, 13 May 2008, Bernhard Fischer wrote:
> 
> > And of course i've seen those dreaded test(1) impls that
> > misinterpret arbitrary strings as args (hence "x$myvariable" != "x")
> > and some ancient test(1) impls don't support -n and/or -z, fwiw.
> 
> Alright.  I think it's ok using the x-thing in tests.  I have
> no problems with using that.  Question is what makes this:

I am not insisting on x thing. I personally prefer it, but
will not require it to be used.

>   [ "x$myvariable" != "x" ]
> 
> or this:
> 
>   [ x"$foo" != x"" ]

I think this one is the most readable. x is visually separated from
the strings, making it clearer that it is (logically) not part of them.

> or this:
> 
>   [ x"$foo" != x"bar" ]

This one is the same as above (just with different string).
--
vda