Bash if statement: Can I do an assignment and comparison?

Question

I want to do something like:

if [ CURRENT=$(stat -c %Y $STATUS_FILE) -ne $LASTUPDATE ] then LASTUPDATE = $CURRENT fi

That is... I want to assign a variable and do a comparison since I'll use that variable later

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-06 03:28:30Z

10

Absolutely.

$ echo "$foo" $ echo "${foo=$(echo bar)}" bar $ echo "$foo" bar

answered Jul 6, 2011 at 3:28

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4 Comments

I think you completely missed the point of his question. I think he wants to do an assignment inside of an IF statement.

Thank you, I had been playing with that but omitted the quotes, not realizing my mistake.

Nope, he got it, I was able to plop this right down in an IF statement successfully, example: if [ "${VAR=$(echo 1)}" -eq 1 ]; echo $VAR; yields "1"

Okay, my bad then. I'd remove my down vote, but I waited too long... if you edit your answer, I can remove it... :)