I am a bit surprised to not see a forum for scripting, maybe one for each shell. This is probably a newbie question so it goes here.

While checking out the case statement I see that case values are terminated by an close parenthesis. An unbalanced close parenthesis. And none of the places I have visited mention this oddity.

REALLY!?! Couldn't use something that does not come in matching pairs, like a colon?

This will cause problems with editors that help find matching parens, braces, and brackets.

Don't forget, I am very much a newbie.

Stroll on over to the Programming forum where you will find members eager to help with all programming questions, including shell scripting!

The unmatched parenthesis syntax of the shell case statement is simply that, a syntax construct with historical roots in an earlier language as I recall. It is often commented on, and perhaps an oddity in comparison to other languages and human habits, but it works and is what it is - a syntax tool to be used by the programmer!

I was thinking that scripting is different from programming, but that is cool. I will use it next time.
I found a couple of tutorials on bash and the case statement and nothing was said about that oddity.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.

A decent text editor with syntax highlighting will handle the case statments with no trouble.

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The umatched parens even caused a parser problem in bash <=3 and ksh88 concerning $(subshell).
Fortunately solved in bash 4 and ksh93.
But there has been a work-around: simply add the opening parenthesis!