Re: Should nested case statements within command substitutions work on in bash 3.2.x?

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On Sun, 22 Mar 2015, Jon Seymour wrote:

> I was surprised that this didn't work with the OSX version of bash 3.2:
>
>     /bin/bash -c 'echo $(case "yes" in yes) echo yes; ;; no) echo no; ;; esac)'
>
> /bin/bash: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token `;;'
> /bin/bash: -c: line 0: `echo $(case "yes" in yes) echo yes; ;; no)
> echo no; ;; esac)'
>
> It does work with bash 4.x.
>
> Is this a known issue with 3.2 or is it particular to the OSX
> implementation (which in my case is 3.2.53(1))?

  Balance the parentheses:

echo $(case "yes" in (yes) echo yes; ;; (no) echo no; ;; esac)

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, <http://cfajohnson.com>