On Fri, 2015-02-13 at 23:46 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote: > I think you are missing some very basic concepts here. First, the > shell likes to parse things separated by white space. Second, [ is a > synonym for test which is a build-in version of /bin/test, so try 'man > test' for the syntax of tests. And third, you generally should use > double quotes around variables in tests so they continue to exist as > an empty string if the variable happens to not be set. Thanks for that. I assumed if test 1 worked, so would test 2. Have re-run test 2 with > 16 if [ $file = "law00css" ] > 17 then > 18 echo $file > 19 echo "css" > 20 else > 21 echo "no css" > 22 fi and got > + '[' law45p07a01 = law00css ']' > + echo 'no css' > no css > + exit which is correct (for the first time). It seems that following your good advice and plonking spaces around the = has solved the problem. Thank you very much. Now I can go to bed a satisfied person :-) -- Regards, Paul. England, EU. Je suis Charlie.