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I have written a shell script which takes file name as parameter e.g user/test.txt. I want to make this file parameter optional if user does not wish to provide file name he/she can give as "None"

Inside script I'm just checking if filename parameter contains "None"

if [ $filename -eq "NONE" ];then
cmd;
fi

When "None" is passed as parameter script works fine but when user/test.txt is passed I get below error message which I don't want to print on console

arithmetic syntax error

Can somebody help ?

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  • consider using bash's argument handling. It will help you be more consistent with other programs. Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 13:28
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    Not part of this problem, but I'd put quotes around that variable ("$filename") in case, e.g., you end up with spaces in there. Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 13:36
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    @goldilocks, spaces or any character in$IFS, or wildcard characters. Funny how the quotes are put where they're not needed ("NONE") and not where they're needed (typical beginner mistake as that's true that it's counter-intuitive to anyone used to other kinds of languages). Note that [ itself is a glob character, though because it's not matched in a single word (or as a special case for zsh), it doesn't need to be quoted. Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 14:26

1 Answer 1

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[ bla bla bla ] is equivalent to test bla bla bla.

From man test

   STRING1 = STRING2
          the strings are equal

   STRING1 != STRING2
          the strings are not equal

   INTEGER1 -eq INTEGER2
          INTEGER1 is equal to INTEGER2

Therefore you need = not -eq.

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  • It is traditional to click the tick if the answer works for you, no need to up-vote. Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 13:41
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    You upvote if it's a good answer. You accept if it's the best/fittest answer that answers your question. Typically, you'll want to upvote the answer you accept unless you think it's not a good answer. Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 14:20

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