labbots / bash-utility Goto Github PK

Just wrote some small code for _detectLinuxDistroFamily_, eventually you may want to include this, it's here.

(1) I see bash-utility heavily using

[[ $# -lt 2 ]] && ...

Wouldn't it be more readable to do

(( $# < 2 )) && ...

instead? (( is used for arithmetic evaluation, which is what -lt is trying to force inside [[.

(2) Also, seeing this:

[[ $# = 0 ]] && ...

rubs me the wrong way on multiple levels.

First, we are all taught that = is assignment and == is equivalence comparison. Yes, in bash they are the same when used inside [[, but = is used for assignment elsewhere in bash and IMHO this is just a bad coding practice.

Second, operator = within [[ is used for pattern matching and not arithmetic comparison. So, it should minimally be:

[[ $# -eq 0 ]] && ...

or better yet:

(( $# == 0 )) && ...

to be more readable and consistent with (1).