begin (1) Linux Manual Page

begin – start a new block of code

Synopsis

begin; [COMMANDS…;] end

Description

The begin builtin is used to create a new block of code. The block is unconditionally executed. begin; …; end is equivalent to if true; …; end. The begin command is used to group any number of commands into a block. The reason for doing so is usually either to introduce a new variable scope, to redirect the input or output of a set of commands as a group, or to specify precedence when using the conditional commands like and.

The begin command does not change the current exit status.

Example

The following code sets a number of variables inside of a block scope. Since the variables are set inside the block and have local scope, they will be automatically deleted when the block ends.

begin

 set -l PIRATE Yarrr

 …

end

# This will not output anything, since the PIRATE variable went out

# of scope at the end of the block

echo $PIRATE

In the following code, all output is redirected to the file out.html.

begin

 echo $xml_header

 echo $html_header

 if test -e $file

 …

 end

 …

end > out.html