---
categories:
  - Programming Languages
tags:
  - shell
---

## If statements

- Conditional blocks start with `if` and end with the inversion `fi` (this is a common syntactic pattern in bash)
- The conditional expression must be placed in square brackets with spaces either side. The spaces matter: if you omit them, the code will not run
- We designate the code to run when the conditional is met with `then`
- We can incorporate else if logic with `elif`