tldr/pages/common/case.md

case

Bash builtin construct for creating multi-choice conditional statements. More information: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#index-case.

• Match a variable against string literals to decide which command to run:

case {{$COUNTRULE}} in {{words}}) {{wc --words README}} ;; {{lines}}) {{wc --lines README}} ;; esac

• Combine patterns with |, use * as a fallback pattern:

case {{$COUNTRULE}} in {{[wW]|words}}) {{wc --words README}} ;; {{[lL]|lines}}) {{wc --lines README}} ;; *) {{echo "what?"}} ;; esac

• Allow matching multiple patterns:

case {{$ANIMAL}} in {{cat}}) {{echo "It's a cat"}} ;;& {{cat|dog}}) {{echo "It's a cat or a dog"}} ;;& *) {{echo "Fallback"}} ;; esac

• Continue to the next pattern's commands without checking the pattern:

case {{$ANIMAL}} in {{cat}}) echo {{"It's a cat"}} ;& {{dog}}) {{echo "It's either a dog or cat fell through"}} ;& *) {{echo "Fallback"}} ;; esac

• Display help:

help case