Request for best use of semicolon and fi in scripts

dear all

Recently fellow LQers solved an issue I had with some commands in my rc.M and rc.cups for slackware 9.1.

I had a command to go to cups and found it needed a semicolon to work correctly. like this


#####################fragment of rc.M
# Start the print spooling system.
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.cups ]; then
. /etc/rc.d/rc.cups start;
fi

#####################fragment of rc.cups
esac

exit 0 ################THIS LINE NEEDED DELETING

#
# Exit with no errors.
#
# End of "$Id: cups.sh.in,v 1.22 2002/12/17 18:56:27 swdev Exp $".

############################END OF fragments

(1) Should I have ; at the end of each command line in say rc.M?

(2) for a IF THEN command do I need a fi at the end of that command?

3) Any links to use of ; or fi would be appreciated.

Heres one simple link to ; INFO

http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Shells/...html#semicolon

aus9,

As you said earlier I'm not the best person to ask, and you're right.

I found this link about if and fi:

http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/linuxcommand.org/wss0090.php#if

I didn't come across with the option to not having a fi, but that may be possible and I'm just ignorant of the fact; I'd like to know if that's possible.

for every 'if' there must be a 'fi'
using the ';' gives a little extra 'continuity' since it tells the shell that something follows. using the '&' is similar. Using '&&' tells bash to run the following command only if the first was successful.
a ';' is not used after 'then'.
It's best to make sure there is a space between all commands and ; & &&
also fi should have a blank space after it and it's best to end a script with a blank line
One of the best script writers out there, Klaus Knopper, always uses the semicolon.
Your script got fouled up someway. there should be a 'fi' to finish that rc.cups call. look at the entries above and below. See how they all begin and end in a little group. the way yours is all the calls that follow the rc.cups call are dependent on cups being present. if you were to uninstall cups rc.M wouldn't find it and wouldn't start anything in the script after that.
Start at the top of the script and follow the if/fi combos. If they are nested then you may get the fis together at the end:
if 'something' ; then
if 'somethingelse' ; then
'do something'
fi
fi

It helps if the scripts are well indented. You can insert TABS to help

Thank you all for your input

and if anyone feels like showing any links thank you for your time as well

for general bash introduction try : http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...og-Intro-HOWTO
(web page load quick cause it is plain text file )