Beginner Bash Scripting Question

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello,

I am new to Linux and studying to become a Unix System Admin. I am taking a course in which I was practicing creating a bash script to ping a particular IP address. The script can be found below:

#/bin/bash

echo "Enter the IP address"
read ip

if [ ! -z $ip ]
then
	ping -c 1 $ip

	if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then
		echo "Machine is giving ping signal successfully"
	else
		echo "Machine is not giving ping signal unsuccessfully"

	fi

else
	echo "IP address is empty"

fi
  • My question is what does the ! -z do and what is it called? Is it a string operator? I tried Google but to no avail. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
2

Read the manpage for test .

man test
1 Like
3

Thank you! I was able to figure out after reading the man page for test

4

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