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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: Why do people use:  if [ "x$FOO" = "x" ] .... ?
Message-ID: <5514@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Apr-85 19:34:33 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5514
Posted: Sat Apr 20 19:34:33 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Apr-85 19:34:33 EST
References: <361@ho95b.UUCP> <5046@ukc.UUCP>, <201@redwood.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 30

> Suppose you are asking for confirmation and you want any of "y", "ye",
> or "yes", or "yo" or anything else starting with "y" to mean "yes",
> and anything starting with "n" to mean "no". ...
> 
> Using "$answer" doesn't work unless you explicitly list ALL of the choices,
> since "*" isn't expanded inside strings...

Huh?  The following has always worked perfectly for us, on both V7
and SysV shells:

	case "$answer"
	in
		y*)
		echo yes
		;;

		n*)
		echo no
		;;

		*)
		echo huh
		;;
	esac

Just to be doubly sure, I just wrote out the above example and tried
it.  Works fine.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry