Question

1

How to close/end/terminate an accidental "if" in the terminal?

rated 0 times [ 1] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 5906 / 3 Years ago, fri, june 11, 2021, 1:17:00

So tab completion is great... unless you're a n00b... and you type the first part of ifconfig and then hit tabenter real quick... in which case you end up with:

(not actual terminal input)

~$ if

> 

> 

>'

> "

> end

> ^C

> 

> )

> ()

> ]

> 

> []

> ]

> ;

> 

> 

> []

> ;aognf'

> 

>

What's really weird is ctrlc didn't even work. I know about quotation marks (which is why that's what I tried first), but that knowledge didn't help.

How can I break out of one of these fat-fingered mistakes next time, without closing the terminal?

Bonus point for answering what is this thing that I've accidentally started doing?

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aradxalte

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2 Years ago

answered 3 Years ago arbaour · Accepted Answer

You have started an if statement. The next command is run, and only if it returns a zero exit status (success) are the following commands executed, from the then keyword up until the fi keyword ("if" backwards). Like:

if true

then

    echo yes

fi

Typically one uses the test program (AKA [) to test various things such as:

if [ $somevariable = someword ]

or

if [ -f /some/file/exists ]

A Ctrl-C aborts it fine for me.