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In the Ubuntu 18.04 LT .bashrc file there is the following:

# set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color) case "$TERM" in xterm-color) color_prompt=yes;; esac

Isn't xterm-color) an instance of unbalanced parentheses? And why does the line end with two semicolons?

To be clear, this is not something I wrote. It's in the virgin file, not edited by me.

If there are syntax errors, to whom should I report this?

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    There's an easy way to check if this is a syntax error: just run it, and Bash will tell you whether it is a syntax error. In fact, this will be run every time you open a terminal, so you just have to look if there is a syntax error printed every time you open the terminal. Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 7:43
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    if it's an error then you'll get a report every time you open a new terminal Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 8:42
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    Prior research might have included simply looking up the syntax for switch/case in Bash, through which you would have quickly discovered that this is entirely normal. Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 16:37
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    @JörgWMittag If you don't know what a script does, running it might be a not so clever idea. Checking it with bash -n .bashrc is probably better Commented Mar 18, 2019 at 8:36
  • @ChatterOne: It gets executed every single time you open a terminal; if there is something malicious about it, it will already have happened a long time ago. Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 18:22

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This is the standard, correct syntax for a bash case statement(known abstractly as a switch statement in general programming), albeit perhaps an odd syntax when compared to C, Java, or other languages.

From The Linux Documentation Project:

Nested if statements might be nice, but as soon as you are confronted with a couple of different possible actions to take, they tend to confuse. For the more complex conditionals, use the case syntax:

case EXPRESSION in CASE1) COMMAND-LIST;; CASE2) COMMAND-LIST;; ... CASEN) COMMAND-LIST;; esac
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  • (the information is also available from help case command.) Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 10:38
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    There can actually be an optional opening parenthesis in front of any of the patterns, i.e. case $var in (foo) echo something;; esac. Bash's command line help doesn't mention that, but the online reference manual has it (Along with an example case statement, too...) Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 17:55
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    Not just in bash; the POSIX shell specification allows an optional opening ( as well. Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 22:20

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