Case statement

Simple case statement

In its simplest form supported by all versions of bash, case statement executes the case that matches the pattern. ;; operator breaks after the first match, if any.

#!/bin/bash

var=1
case $var in
1)
 echo "Antartica"
;;
2)
 echo "Brazil"
;;
3)
 echo "Cat"
;;
esac

Outputs:

Antartica

Case statement with fall through

Version ≥ 4.0

Since bash 4.0, a new operator ;& was introduced which provides fall through mechanism.

!/bin/bash

var=1
case $var in
1)
 echo "Antartica"
 ;&
2)
 echo "Brazil"
 ;&
3)
 echo "Cat"
 ;&
esac

Outputs:

Antartica
Brazil
Cat

Fall through only if subsequent pattern(s) match

Since Bash 4.0, another operator ;;& was introduced which also provides fall through only if the patterns in subsequent case statement(s), if any, match.

#!/bin/bash

var=abc
case $var in
a*)
 echo "Antartica"
 ;;&
xyz)
 echo "Brazil"
 ;;&
*b*)
 echo "Cat"
 ;;&
esac

Outputs:

Antartica
Cat

In the below example, the abc matches both first and third case but not the second case. So, second case is not executed.