[linux] One line if/else condition in linux shell scripting

I would like to have the equivelant of the following in a one line if/else condition.

$maxline=`cat journald.conf | grep "#SystemMaxUse="`
if [ $maxline == "#SystemMaxUse=" ]
then
    sed 's/\#SystemMaxUse=/SystemMaxUse=50M/g' journald.conf > journald.conf2
    mv journald.conf2 journald.conf;
else
    echo "This file has been edited. You'll need to do it manually."
fi  

I'm attempting to put this into a one line command. So far I've gotten it all but the else portion of the command. Here's what I have so far...

maxline=`cat journald.conf | grep "#SystemMaxUse="` && if [ $maxline == "#SystemMaxUse=" ]; then sed 's/\#SystemMaxUse=/SystemMaxUse=50M/g' journald.conf > journald.conf2 && mv journald.conf2 journald.conf; fi

So how can I include the else portion of the above code into my command? Thank you for your help in advance.

This question is related to linux shell if-statement

The answer is


It looks as if you were on the right track. You just need to add the else statement after the ";" following the "then" statement. Also I would split the first line from the second line with a semicolon instead of joining it with "&&".

maxline='cat journald.conf | grep "#SystemMaxUse="'; if [ $maxline == "#SystemMaxUse=" ]; then sed 's/\#SystemMaxUse=/SystemMaxUse=50M/g' journald.conf > journald.conf2 && mv journald.conf2 journald.conf; else echo "This file has been edited. You'll need to do it manually."; fi

Also in your original script, when declaring maxline you used back-ticks "`" instead of single quotes "'" which might cause problems.


To summarize the other answers, for general use:

Multi-line if...then statement

if [ foo ]; then
    a; b
elif [ bar ]; then
    c; d
else
    e; f
fi

Single-line version

if [ foo ]; then a && b; elif [ bar ]; c && d; else e && f; fi

Using the OR operator

( foo && a && b ) || ( bar && c && d ) || e && f;

Notes

Remember that the AND and OR operators evaluate whether or not the result code of the previous operation was equal to true/success (0). So if a custom function returns something else (or nothing at all), you may run into problems with the AND/OR shorthand. In such cases, you may want to replace something like ( a && b ) with ( [ a == 'EXPECTEDRESULT' ] && b ), etc.

Also note that ( and [ are technically commands, so whitespace is required around them.

Instead of a group of && statements like then a && b; else, you could also run statements in a subshell like then $( a; b ); else, though this is less efficient. The same is true for doing something like result1=$( foo; a; b ); result2=$( bar; c; d ); [ "$result1" -o "$result2" ] instead of ( foo && a && b ) || ( bar && c && d ). Though at that point you'd be getting more into less-compact, multi-line stuff anyway.


You can use like bellow:

(( var0 = var1<98?9:21 ))

the same as

if [ "$var1" -lt 98 ]; then
   var0=9
else
   var0=21
fi

extends

condition?result-if-true:result-if-false

I found the interested thing on the book "Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide"


It's not a direct answer to the question but you could just use the OR-operator

( grep "#SystemMaxUse=" journald.conf > /dev/null && sed -i 's/\#SystemMaxUse=/SystemMaxUse=50M/g' journald.conf ) || echo "This file has been edited. You'll need to do it manually."

Examples related to linux

grep's at sign caught as whitespace How to prevent Google Colab from disconnecting? "E: Unable to locate package python-pip" on Ubuntu 18.04 How to upgrade Python version to 3.7? Install Qt on Ubuntu Get first line of a shell command's output Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:/var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running? Run bash command on jenkins pipeline How to uninstall an older PHP version from centOS7 How to update-alternatives to Python 3 without breaking apt?

Examples related to shell

Comparing a variable with a string python not working when redirecting from bash script Get first line of a shell command's output How to run shell script file using nodejs? Run bash command on jenkins pipeline Way to create multiline comments in Bash? How to do multiline shell script in Ansible How to check if a file exists in a shell script How to check if an environment variable exists and get its value? Curl to return http status code along with the response docker entrypoint running bash script gets "permission denied"

Examples related to if-statement

How to use *ngIf else? SQL Server IF EXISTS THEN 1 ELSE 2 What is a good practice to check if an environmental variable exists or not? Using OR operator in a jquery if statement R multiple conditions in if statement Syntax for an If statement using a boolean How to have multiple conditions for one if statement in python Ifelse statement in R with multiple conditions If strings starts with in PowerShell Multiple conditions in an IF statement in Excel VBA