Reference: case
Author: Daniel Gilly & the Staff of O'Reilly & Associates
Date: 1998-08-06T21:58:41Z

#

| Chapter 4 The Bourne Shell and Korn Shell |

## case

    case value in
        pattern1) cmds1;;
        pattern2) cmds2;;
        .
        .
        .
    esac

Execute the first set of commands (`cmds1`) if `value` matches `pattern1`, execute the second set of commands (`cmds2`) if `value` matches `pattern2`, etc. Be sure the last command in each set ends with ;; . `value` is typically a positional parameter or other shell variable. `cmds` are typically UNIX commands, shell programming commands, or variable assignments. Patterns can use file generation metacharacters. Multiple patterns (separated by |) can be specified on the same line; in this case, the associated `cmds` are executed whenever `value` matches any of these patterns. See below and under eval for examples. (Note: the Korn shell allows `pattern` to be preceded by an optional open parenthesis, as in (`pattern`). It's useful for balancing parentheses inside a $( ) construct.)

### Examples

Read first command-line argument and take appropriate action:

>     case $1 in	#match the first arg
>         no|yes) response=1;;
>         -[tT])  table=TRUE;;
>         *)      echo "unknown option"; exit 1;;
>     esac

Read user-supplied lines until user exits:

>     while :	# Null command; always true
>     do
>        echo "Type . to finish ==> \c"
>        read line
>        case "$line" in
>           .) echo "Message done"
>              break ;;
>           *) echo "$line" >> $message ;;
>        esac
>     done

Reference: break |  | Reference: cd