Is there an elegant way to store and evaluate return values in bash scripts?

Question

I have a rather complex series of commands in bash that ends up returning a meaningful exit code. Various places later in the script need to branch conditionally on whether

Answer 1

Why don't you set flags for the stuff that needs to happen later?

cheeseballs=false
nachos=false
guppies=false

command
case $? in
    42) cheeseballs=true ;;
    17 | 31) cheeseballs=true; nachos=true; guppies=true;;
    66) guppies=true; echo "Bingo!";;
esac

$cheeseballs && java -crash -burn
$nachos && python ./tex.py --mex
if $guppies; then
    aquarium --light=blue --door=hidden --decor=squid
else
    echo SRY
fi

As pointed out by @CharlesDuffy in the comments, storing an actual command in a variable is slightly dubious, and vaguely triggers Bash FAQ #50 warnings; the code reads (slightly & IMHO) more naturally like this, but you have to be really careful that you have total control over the variables at all times. If you have the slightest doubt, perhaps just use string values and compare against the expected value at each junction.

[ "$cheeseballs" = "true" ] && java -crash -burn

etc etc; or you could refactor to some other implementation structure for the booleans (an associative array of options would make sense, but isn't portable to POSIX sh; a PATH-like string is flexible, but perhaps too unstructured).