Bash Is Goofy

[shanenin]

I was helping someone write a bash script. I needed to have a counter in a while loop. in python you can do this

x=x+1

or

x+=1

in bash I had to do it this way, I needed to look this up

x=`echo "$x + 1" | bc`

wow, that just seems rediculous. Also is there a logical reason bash does not use these operaters(<,>,<=,>=) instead it uses (-eq,-ne,it,ie)

[jcl]

You want arithmetic expansion. Syntax is $((expression)).

x=$((x+1))

or if you're using bash

((x++))

or even

let x+=1

. All of the normal arithmetic operaters are available, including the comparison operators you mentioned.

[shanenin]

those methods work much better then my convoluted mess.