bash: Looping Constructs
3.2.4.1 Looping Constructs
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Bash supports the following looping constructs.
Note that wherever a ';' appears in the description of a command's
syntax, it may be replaced with one or more newlines.
'until'
The syntax of the 'until' command is:
until TEST-COMMANDS; do CONSEQUENT-COMMANDS; done
Execute CONSEQUENT-COMMANDS as long as TEST-COMMANDS has an exit
status which is not zero. The return status is the exit status of
the last command executed in CONSEQUENT-COMMANDS, or zero if none
was executed.
'while'
The syntax of the 'while' command is:
while TEST-COMMANDS; do CONSEQUENT-COMMANDS; done
Execute CONSEQUENT-COMMANDS as long as TEST-COMMANDS has an exit
status of zero. The return status is the exit status of the last
command executed in CONSEQUENT-COMMANDS, or zero if none was
executed.
'for'
The syntax of the 'for' command is:
for NAME [ [in [WORDS ...] ] ; ] do COMMANDS; done
Expand WORDS, and execute COMMANDS once for each member in the
resultant list, with NAME bound to the current member. If 'in
WORDS' is not present, the 'for' command executes the COMMANDS once
for each positional parameter that is set, as if 'in "$@"' had been
specified (Special Parameters). The return status is the
exit status of the last command that executes. If there are no
items in the expansion of WORDS, no commands are executed, and the
return status is zero.
An alternate form of the 'for' command is also supported:
for (( EXPR1 ; EXPR2 ; EXPR3 )) ; do COMMANDS ; done
First, the arithmetic expression EXPR1 is evaluated according to
the rules described below (Shell Arithmetic). The
arithmetic expression EXPR2 is then evaluated repeatedly until it
evaluates to zero. Each time EXPR2 evaluates to a non-zero value,
COMMANDS are executed and the arithmetic expression EXPR3 is
evaluated. If any expression is omitted, it behaves as if it
evaluates to 1. The return value is the exit status of the last
command in COMMANDS that is executed, or false if any of the
expressions is invalid.
The 'break' and 'continue' builtins (Bourne Shell Builtins)
may be used to control loop execution.