On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 11:14 +0000, Tom Brown wrote: > Hi > > Below if $remaining is empty i want the if to finish - what is it i need > to put in SOMETHING? > > if [ "$remaining" = "" ] ; then > SOMETHING ; > else > kill -9 $remaining > fi if [ -n "$remaining" ] ; then kill -9 $remaining fi Man bash, look for builtin "test" and find a bunch of tests defined there. Keep in mind that "test" and "if [ ... ]" are equivalent in bash. I don't know how much other code surround this, but I deduce (admittedly incomplete information) that you have a reducing list operation going? If so, maybe something like # Initialize remaing list and then set "$remaining" # If empty $1 is null while [ -n "$1" ] ; do echo "$1" # remove this kill -9 $ shift done $ remaining="9997 9998 9999" $ while [ -n "$1" ] ; do > echo "$1" > shift > done 9997 9998 9999 > > thanks? > <snip sig stuff> HTH -- Bill