paintedjazz@gmail.com wrote:
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
>>paintedjazz@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>>If I use the result of a function call in a condtional statement,
>>>is it possible to return one of three possible values or is it just
>>>true or false or a 0 or 1 status?
>>>
>>>I want to test if a number is greater than, equal to or less than
>>>another number.
>>>Thus, the function should be something like:
>>>
>>>if myfunction $num $another_num # return value is probably only 0 or
>>>1
>>>then
>>> echo $num is greater than
>>>else
>>> echo $num is less than
>>>fi
>>>
>>>But I need to know if $num and $another_num are equal too.
>>>
>>>Can I just have the function return a value (other than the status)
>>>that could be tested?
>>>How could I do that? Thx for your .
>>>
>>
>>You could of course return values of 0, 1, and 2 from the function,
>>then test the return code through variable $? in a case statement.
>>
>> fn() { ...
>> return $anyresult
>> }
>>
>> case $? in
>> ...
>> esac
>>
>>But the intention of the exit code is rather to indicate success
>>(code 0) or failure (code >0), and conceptually the shell functions
>>are more like commands than like mathematical functions. Values from
>>functions are usually returned through the "print interface"...
>>
>> fn() { ...
>> print $anyresult
>> }
>>
>> result=$( fn arg1 arg2 )
>> if [ $result -eq ... ]
>>
>>Or use a case statement...
>>
>> case $( fn arg1 arg2 ) in
>> ...
>> esac
>>
>>
>>Janis
>
>
> I'm not sure what the"print interface" is. Do you mean you just echo
> or printf a string to stdout and that will end up as the result of the
> function? I do like this way of doing it though.
>

Yes, exactly. Sorry for having been unclear. And I shouldn't have used
the ksh specific print; you should indeed use printf (not echo).

Janis