Linux Certif

Toute la documentation sur la certification Linux LPI

begin

NAME

begin - start a new block of code

Synopsis

begin; [COMMANDS...;] end

Description

The begin builtin is used to create a new block of code. The block is unconditionally executed. begin; ...; end is equivalent to if true; ...; end. The begin command is used to group any number of commands into a block. The reason for doing so is usually either to introduce a new variable scope, to redirect the input or output of a set of commands as a group, or to specify precedence when using the conditional commands like and.

The begin command does not change the current exit status.

Example

The following code sets a number of variables inside of a block scope. Since the variables are set inside the block and have local scope, they will be automatically deleted when the block ends.

 
 begin
         set -l PIRATE Yarrr
         ...
 end
 # This will not output anything, since the PIRATE variable went out
 # of scope at the end of the block
 echo $PIRATE
 

In the following code, all output is redirected to the file out.html.

 
 begin
         echo $xml_header
         echo $html_header
         if test -e $file 
                 ...
         end
         ...
 

 end > out.html