use regular expression in if-condition in bash

Question

I wonder the general rule to use regular expression in if clause in bash?

Here is an example

$ gg=svm-grid-ch  
$ if [[ $gg == *grid* ]] ; then echo         


        

Answer 1

Adding this solution with grep and basic sh builtins for those interested in a more portable solution (independent of bash version; also works with plain old sh, on non-Linux platforms etc.)

# GLOB matching
gg=svm-grid-ch    
case "$gg" in
   *grid*) echo $gg ;;
esac

# REGEXP    
if echo "$gg" | grep '^....grid*' >/dev/null ; then echo $gg ; fi    
if echo "$gg" | grep '....grid*' >/dev/null ; then echo $gg ; fi    
if echo "$gg" | grep 's...grid*' >/dev/null ; then echo $gg ; fi    

# Extended REGEXP
if echo "$gg" | egrep '(^....grid*|....grid*|s...grid*)' >/dev/null ; then
  echo $gg
fi    

Some grep incarnations also support the -q (quiet) option as an alternative to redirecting to /dev/null, but the redirect is again the most portable.