Inline if shell script

Question

Is it possible to execute shell script in command line like this :

counter=`ps -ef | grep -c \"myApplication\"`; if [ $counter -eq 1 ] then; echo \"true\";
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Answer 1

It doesn't work because you missed out fi to end your if statement.

counter=`ps -ef | grep -c "myApplication"`; if [ $counter -eq 1 ]; then echo "true"; fi

You can shorten it further using:

if [ $(ps -ef | grep -c "myApplication") -eq 1 ]; then echo "true"; fi

Also, do take note the issue of ps -ef | grep ... matching itself as mentioned in @DigitalRoss' answer.

update

In fact, you can do one better by using pgrep:

if [ $(pgrep -c "myApplication") -eq 1 ]; then echo "true"; fi