Re: maybe some of these "case" reactions are no-no's

[Paul Jarc]

Dan Jacobson <jidanni@deadspam.com> wrote:
> In the manual is says
>   case word in [ [(] pattern [ | pattern ] ... ) list ;; ]
>        ... esac
>
> $ case esac 
>> #odd, why is it asking for another line instead of failing?

"esac" is a word.  There is no error yet.  "in" is expected next.
man bash:
       The following words are recognized as reserved when unquoted
       and either the first word of a simple com­ mand (see SHELL
       GRAMMAR below) or the third word of a case or for command:
       [...] esac
In this context, "esac" is not considered a reserved word.

> $ case a in b);;esac

No problem with this code, AFAIK, so this would be a documentation
bug.

> $ case a in b)esac #odd.  what about ;;?

Looks like that ought to fail.

> $ case a in b);esac
> bash: syntax error near unexpected token `;e'

Correct failure, bad error message.  Something like this has been
discussed here already.

> $ case a in b): esac
>> 
> $ case a in b)date esac
>> 

You've given a command with an argument of "esac".  ";;" or another
command is expected next.

> $ case a in b)date ;esac
> $ case b in b)date ;esac
> Tue 04  9 21:12:29 CST 2002

Looks like that ought to fail.


paul