The difference between test, [ and [[ is explained in great details in the BashFAQ.
To cut a long story short: test implements the old, portable syntax of the command. In almost all shells (the oldest Bourne shells are the exception), [ is a synonym for test (but requires a final argument of ]). Although all modern shells have built-in implementations of [, there usually still is an external executable of that name, e.g. /bin/[.
[[ is a new improved version of it, which is a keyword, not a program. This has beneficial effects on the ease of use, as shown below. [[ is understood by KornShell and BASH (e.g. 2.03), but not by the older POSIX or BourneShell.
And the conclusion:
When should the new test command [[ be used, and when the old one [? If portability to the BourneShell is a concern, the old syntax should be used. If on the other hand the script requires BASH or KornShell, the new syntax is much more flexible.
Brackets
if [ CONDITION ] Test construct
if [[ CONDITION ]] Extended test construct
Array[1]=element1 Array initialization
[a-z] Range of characters within a Regular Expression
$[ expression ] A non-standard & obsolete version of $(( expression )) [1]
[1] http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/scripting/obsolete
Curly Braces
${variable} Parameter substitution
${!variable} Indirect variable reference
{ command1; command2; . . . commandN; } Block of code
{string1,string2,string3,...} Brace expansion
{a..z} Extended brace expansion
{} Text replacement, after find and xargs
Parentheses
( command1; command2 ) Command group executed within a subshell
Array=(element1 element2 element3) Array initialization
result=$(COMMAND) Command substitution, new style
>(COMMAND) Process substitution
<(COMMAND) Process substitution
Double Parentheses
(( var = 78 )) Integer arithmetic
var=$(( 20 + 5 )) Integer arithmetic, with variable assignment
(( var++ )) C-style variable increment
(( var-- )) C-style variable decrement
(( var0 = var1<98?9:21 )) C-style ternary operation
I just wanted to add these from TLDP:
~:$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash
~:$ echo ${#SHELL}
9
~:$ ARRAY=(one two three)
~:$ echo ${#ARRAY}
3
~:$ echo ${TEST:-test}
test
~:$ echo $TEST
~:$ export TEST=a_string
~:$ echo ${TEST:-test}
a_string
~:$ echo ${TEST2:-$TEST}
a_string
~:$ echo $TEST2
~:$ echo ${TEST2:=$TEST}
a_string
~:$ echo $TEST2
a_string
~:$ export STRING="thisisaverylongname"
~:$ echo ${STRING:4}
isaverylongname
~:$ echo ${STRING:6:5}
avery
~:$ echo ${ARRAY[*]}
one two one three one four
~:$ echo ${ARRAY[*]#one}
two three four
~:$ echo ${ARRAY[*]#t}
one wo one hree one four
~:$ echo ${ARRAY[*]#t*}
one wo one hree one four
~:$ echo ${ARRAY[*]##t*}
one one one four
~:$ echo $STRING
thisisaverylongname
~:$ echo ${STRING%name}
thisisaverylong
~:$ echo ${STRING/name/string}
thisisaverylongstring
Parentheses ()
are being used in function definition:
function_name () { command1 ; command2 ; }
That is the reason you have to escape parentheses even in command parameters:
$ echo (
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
$ echo \(
(
$ echo () { command echo The command echo was redefined. ; }
$ echo anything
The command echo was redefined.
Truncate the contents of a variable
$ var="abcde"; echo ${var%d*}
abc
Make substitutions similar to sed
$ var="abcde"; echo ${var/de/12}
abc12
Use a default value
$ default="hello"; unset var; echo ${var:-$default}
hello
A single bracket ([
) usually actually calls a program named [
; man test
or man [
for more info. Example:
$ VARIABLE=abcdef
$ if [ $VARIABLE == abcdef ] ; then echo yes ; else echo no ; fi
yes
The double bracket ([[
) does the same thing (basically) as a single bracket, but is a bash builtin.
$ VARIABLE=abcdef
$ if [[ $VARIABLE == 123456 ]] ; then echo yes ; else echo no ; fi
no
Parentheses (()
) are used to create a subshell. For example:
$ pwd
/home/user
$ (cd /tmp; pwd)
/tmp
$ pwd
/home/user
As you can see, the subshell allowed you to perform operations without affecting the environment of the current shell.
(a) Braces ({}
) are used to unambiguously identify variables. Example:
$ VARIABLE=abcdef
$ echo Variable: $VARIABLE
Variable: abcdef
$ echo Variable: $VARIABLE123456
Variable:
$ echo Variable: ${VARIABLE}123456
Variable: abcdef123456
(b) Braces are also used to execute a sequence of commands in the current shell context, e.g.
$ { date; top -b -n1 | head ; } >logfile
# 'date' and 'top' output are concatenated,
# could be useful sometimes to hunt for a top loader )
$ { date; make 2>&1; date; } | tee logfile
# now we can calculate the duration of a build from the logfile
There is a subtle syntactic difference with ( )
, though (see bash reference) ; essentially, a semicolon ;
after the last command within braces is a must, and the braces {
, }
must be surrounded by spaces.
Source: Stackoverflow.com