2 SC2204

Joachim Ansorg edited this page 2021-11-12 19:48:43 +01:00

Table of Contents

• (..) is a subshell. Did you mean [ .. ], a test expression?
• Problematic code:
• Correct code:
• Rationale:
• Exceptions:

(..) is a subshell. Did you mean [ .. ], a test expression?

Problematic code:

if ( -d mydir )
then
  echo "It's a directory"
fi

Correct code:

if [ -d mydir ]
then
  echo "It's a directory"
fi

Rationale:

Tests like -d to see if something is a directory or -z to see if it's non-empty are actually flags to the test command, and only work as tests in that context. [ is an alias for test, so you'll frequently see them written as [ -d mydir ].

( .. ) is completely unrelated, and is a subshell mostly used to scope shell modifications. They should not be used in if or while statements in shell scripts.

If you wanted to test a condition, rewrite the ( .. ) to [ .. ].

Exceptions:

None.

This error is triggered by having a unary test operator as the first command name in a subshell, which won't normally happen. Note that there's a similar warning SC2205 with a higher false positive rate.

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