Re: PIPESTATUS differs from $? for compound command

[Chet Ramey]

On 12/9/24 12:21 PM, Ulrich Müller wrote:

> Bash Version: 5.2
> Patch Level: 37
> Release Status: release
>
> Description:
>         For a compound command like "if" or "while" and with
>         an unsuccessful test, the last element of PIPESTATUS is not the
>         return status of the compound but that of the test command.
>         For example, "if false; then :; fi" returns 0 but ${PIPESTATUS[0]}
>         is 1.

Compound commands don't generally set PIPESTATUS. Multi-element pipelines
(the original purpose, because otherwise why bother), simple commands
(single-element pipelines) including shell builtins, and compound commands
that resemble simple commands (`[[', `((') set it.

Yes, you can make the case that compound commands are pipelines, and,
according to the grammar, they are, but their status is always available
in $?, and they never have more than one status value.

--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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