STRING1 = STRING2 (conditional operator)

true if the strings are equal.

Bash also allows using ==, but this operator is not included in POSIX. Use = for POSIX compatibility.

Integers are compared with -eq.

Bash

This operator uses pattern matching within a [[ ... ]] construct.

Links

• Bash manual
• Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
• POSIX specification of test

Examples

Different ways to test if two strings are equal:

1 2 3 4 5

test "$name" = "Jane" && echo "it's Jane!" [ "$name" = "Jane" ] && echo "it's Jane!" # Bash [[ "$name" = "Jane" ]] && echo "it's Jane!" [[ "$name" = "Jan"* ]] && echo "it's Jan or Jane!"