syntax error on if[“$foo” == “bar”] in bash

Question

I am new to bash, but according to some flow control guides I saw, this script should work just find, but I get line 4 syntax error near unexpected token then

Answer 1

In the shell, [ is a command and ] is an argument to that command. Arguments must be separate words, separated by white space. Aside from that, I would also suggest changing your == to = (the latter is more widely supported). Also, you can combine your echo and read statements using read -p.

#!/bin/bash
read -p $'Type your name\n' personname
if [ "$personname" = "kevin" ]; then
    echo "Your name is kevin"
    exit 1
fi

The $'string\n' syntax allows you to use characters such as the newline \n in the prompt string. If you don't actually want a newline, you could simply use something like 'Type your name: ' and the prompt would appear on the same line as the user input.

Answer 2

You are missing some spaces in if statement

#!/bin/bash
echo "Type your name"
read personname
if [ "$personname" == "kevin" ]; then
    echo "Your name is kevin"
    exit 1
fi