Bash fi Keyword

Bash is a scripting language that is specially built for Linux Shell. This is also called shell scripting.

The general format for the if ... else conditional statement is:

if CONDITIONAL COMMANDS
then
  STATEMENTS
fi

In this article, we will see the use of the fi keyword in Bash. Also, we will see necessary examples to make our topic easier.

the fi Keyword in Bash

We use the fi keyword with the if ... else conditional command. It’s used for indicating that the conditional statements end here.

But it’s very important to include the then keyword before the fi keyword; otherwise, it will cause an error in your code. Below shared an example with line by line explanation.

echo -n "Please enter a number: "
read YOUR_VAR

if [[ $YOUR_VAR -gt 10 ]]
then
  echo "The input you provided is greater than 10."
fi

Let’s explain the code line by line to make it easier.

1. We take the user input to the system through the line echo -n "Please enter a number: ".
2. The system reads the user input through the line read YOUR_VAR.
3. Through the line, if [[ $YOUR_VAR -gt 10 ]], the system checks whether the user input is greater than 10.
4. Through the keyword then, the conditional statement starts, and if the condition matches the criteria, then it will print The input you provided is greater than 10. through the line echo "The input you provided is greater than 10.".
5. Lastly, we end the if ... else with the keyword fi.

Please note that the keyword -gt means Greater Than. After executing the program on your shell, you will get the output below.

Please enter a number: 12
The input you provided is greater than 10.

From the above example, we can say that all the statements we want to be done by the if ... else needs to include between the then and fi. The keyword then indicates the start, and the keyword fi indicates the finish.

So the keyword fi is always used to end the conditional block.

The major difference between the fi and ;; is that the ;; closes all the current entries of the case statement, and the fi closes the if statement. Both of them work on a conditional statement.

Please note that all the code used in this article is written in Bash. It will only work in the Linux Shell environment.