On Thu, Sep 25, 2025, at 11:45 PM, Duncan Roe via Bug reports for the GNU
Bourne Again SHell wrote:
> The last *list* in a case command may be terminated by a single ';', but all
> other lists must be terminated by ';;'.
>
> [...]
>
> Does this just "happen to work"?
No, POSIX requires it:
The format for the case construct is as follows:
case word in
[[(] pattern[ | pattern] ... ) compound-list terminator] ...
[[(] pattern[ | pattern] ... ) compound-list]
esac
Where _terminator_ is either ";;" or ";&" and is optional
for the last compound-list.
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799.2024edition/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_19_09_04_05
P.S. In the future it would be helpful for list subscribers and
readers of the list archive if you changed the email subject when
you post digressions like this.
--
vq
