OT: bash help

[Mike Wright]

08/16/2014 04:14 PM, Mark C. Allman wrote:
> On Sun, 2014-08-17 at 00:42 +0200, Suvayu Ali wrote:
>> On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 02:44:14PM -0700, Mike Wright wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I'm trying to write a simple script that if provided an argument, uses that,
>>> or if nothing is provided, uses a predefined string.
>>>
>>> if [ -n $# ]
>>
>> This will always be true.  -n tests if a string is empty or not.  0
>> counts as non-empty.  You should use one of the comparison operators.
>> Try something like this:
>>
>>    [ $# -gt 0 ]
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> --
>> Suvayu
>>
>> Open source is the future. It sets us free.
>
> Are you looking for behavior that the following test script
> demonstrates?
>
>      #!/bin/bash
>
>      theArg=${1:-The Default Value}
>
>      echo $theArg

Thanx Mark,

Very elegant.  I like it.

I was just going through the section on "variable substitution" in "Unix 
in a Nutshell" and saw that.