STRING1 =~ STRING2 (conditional operator)

true if the value on the left matches the regular expression on the right.

=~ is not included in POSIX. Avoid it if you want to stay compatible with POSIX shells.

Links

• Bash manual
• Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide: introduction to regular expressions

Examples

Different ways to test if a string matches a regular expression:

1 2	# Bash [[ $name =~ J[au]ne ]] && echo "it's Jane or June!"