comparing variables in an if statement

Shell Programming and Scripting
1 
#!/bin/bash
#timetest
TIMENOW="$(date)"
T1=12:00:00
echo $TIMENOW >timenow
cat timenow |cut -f4 -d' ' >time1
T2=$(sed -n "${1}p" time1)
echo "T1 = " $T1
echo "T2 = " $T2
if[ $T1 -gt $T2 ] then
  echo $T1 
 else
  echo $T2 
fi

I thought scripting was simple! So why does this script result in:

T1 =  12:00:00
T2 =  16:04:43
/home/admin/user/bin/timetest: line 10: if[ 12:00:00 -gt 16:04:43 ]: command not found
12:00:00
/home/admin/user/bin/timetest: line 12: syntax error near unexpected token `else'
/home/admin/user/bin/timetest: line 12: ` else'
2

You are getting the command not found message because you need a space between the 'if' and the open bracket:

if [ $T1 -gt $T2 ] then

You will also likely receive an error once you fix that as '-gt' implies integer comparison, and your variables contain non-numeric chaaracters (colons). You might consider something like this:

t1="12000000"
t2="$(date "+%H%M%S")"
if [ $t1 -gt $t2 ]
then
    echo true
else
    echo false
fi

Both timestamps are created without colons and can be compared as integers.

3

Thank you for the replies. The placement of 'then' was important as was the space after 'if' ........Thank you, Agama! However I still needed further modification. Here is the script that works:

#!/bin/bash
#timetest
TIMENOW="$(date)"
T1=12:00:00
echo $TIMENOW >timenow
cat timenow |cut -f4 -d' ' >time1
T2=$(sed -n "${1}p" time1)
echo "T1 = " $T1
echo "T2 = " $T2
if [[ $T1 < $T2 ]] #or [ $T1 \< $T2 ] for comparing ascii strings
 then
  echo $T1 
 else
  echo $T2 
fi
4

Good. I still think you are going through more work than needed to get T2. All that effort of cutting, echoing and tmp files isn't needed:

T2=$( date "+%H%M%S" )    # without colons
T2=$( date "+%X" )              # hr:min:sec
5

Thank you! I was concentrating so hard on the 'if' I neglected the more obvious......Thanks again.