Re: bash 'let' can give error

[Andreas Schwab]

Marc Herbert <Marc.Herbert@gmail.com> writes:

>> let intentionally returns status 1 if the value was 0; and status > 1 if
>> there was an error.  Why?  So you can do loops such as:
>> 
>> countdown=10
>> while let countdown--; do ... ; done
>> 
>>> Why does this happen? Is it 'by design'?
>> 
>> Yes.  The same as for 'expr' which is standardized by POSIX to have the
>> same behavior.
>
> This is a design mistake: it trades a few characters for a lot of confusion.

You can always choose to ignore the exit status.  The converse is not
true.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
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