Re: The .xsession-errors problem

[Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org>]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 11:28:12AM +1100, David wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Oct 2020 at 10:56, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
> >       fuser -v "$j"
> >       [ $? -ne 0 ] && gzip "$j" && mv -i "$j.gz" "$HOME/.monitors/xsession/"
> 
> > (Script improvements always appreciated.)

> https://www.shellcheck.net says:
> """
> Line 2:
> [ $? -ne 0 ] && echo hi
>   ^-- SC2181: Check exit code directly with e.g. 'if mycmd;', not
> indirectly with $?.
> """

In other words, instead of writing:

fuser -v thing
[ $? != 0 ] && other thing && third thing

You can write it this way:

if ! fuser -v thing; then
  other thing &&
  third thing
fi

The $? form isn't technically *wrong*, but it's awkward, and doesn't
let you have an "else" action.