if, elif, else statement issues in Bash

Question

I can\'t seem to work out what the issue with the following if statement is in regards to the elif and then. Keep in mind the pr

Answer 1

I would recommend you having a look at the basics of conditioning in bash.

The symbol "[" is a command and must have a whitespace prior to it. If you don't give whitespace after your elif, the system interprets elif[ as a a particular command which is definitely not what you'd want at this time.

Usage:

elif(A COMPULSORY WHITESPACE WITHOUT PARENTHESIS)[(A WHITE SPACE WITHOUT PARENTHESIS)conditions(A WHITESPACE WITHOUT PARENTHESIS)]

In short, edit your code segment to:

elif [ "$seconds" -gt 0 ]

You'd be fine with no compilation errors. Your final code segment should look like this:

#!/bin/sh    
if [ "$seconds" -eq 0 ];then
       $timezone_string="Z"
    elif [ "$seconds" -gt 0 ]
    then
       $timezone_string=`printf "%02d:%02d" $seconds/3600 ($seconds/60)%60`
    else
       echo "Unknown parameter"
    fi