Solaris™ 7 Reference

case, switch, select — Shell Built-in Functions to Choose from a List of Actions

Synopsis

sh

case word in [pattern [| pattern]) actions;;] ... esac 

csh

switch (expression) 
 case comparison1: 
 actions 
 breaksw 
 case comparison2: 
 actions 
 breaksw 
... 
 default: 
endsw 

ksh

case word in [pattern [| pattern] ) actions;;] ... esac 
select identifier [in word...] ; do list; done 

Description

In shell scripts, you may want to take several different types of action depending on the value of a variable or a parameter. You can do so in the Bourne shell by using the case statement, in the C shell by using the case and switch statements, or in the Korn shell by using the case and select statements.

The value of the variable is successively compared against ...