In Bash, the characters and strings can be represented as other sequence structures and data types. Computers do not use strings for storing information, but they are useful for transferring it from one program to another.
Sometimes, it is essential to check whether a string is empty, as it clarifies the intent of the string. You can use the -z flag with the test command to test the string. However, the -z test condition in Bash sometimes becomes confusing for beginners. In this tutorial, we will explain through examples on how to use the -z test condition in a Bash script.
Z Test Condition in Bash
You can test in Bash whether your string is empty using the z-test condition. If the string is empty, it returns 0; otherwise, it returns 1. The general syntax to execute the z-test condition in Bash is as follows:
echo $?
The “echo $” command tells you whether the command you have written is correct. This command also returns 0 if the previous command is true and 1 if it is false. Let’s create a string and check with the z-test condition whether the string is empty.
name= 'jack'
details= "This script is related to $name, from the programming world"
echo $details
Output:
Upon running the given Bash script, we get 1 in our output, which means that our string is not empty. This way, you can check whether your string is empty with the z-test condition in Bash.
Conclusion
Strings are a data type that includes a sequence of characters, elements, etc. It comes in handy when communicating the information from a program to a program user. You can check this in Bash using the z-test condition. In this tutorial, we used an example to show you how to check if a string is empty using the z-test Bash condition.
