For some inexplicable reason, when I run the following code (minimalized, obviously) a file called "0" is created. Could somebody please explain why this happens, and how to avoid it? Thanks very much
#!/bin/bash
while [ 1 > 0 ]
do
exit
done
> 0 redirects to a file named 0. Note > something or similar syntax does not have to be at the end. The file will be created even if the command being redirected doesn't make sense. In your case the command is [ 1 ] and it's syntactically valid: it checks if 1 is a non-empty string.
You probably meant [ 1 -gt 0 ]. See help [ and help test | less.
\< and \> for string comparison.
[[ 1 :operator: 0 ]] without the escapes where operator is > or <. Seems that >= and <= are invalid so the usual -ge and -le should be used in those cases.
[[ 2 > 11 ]] for example) - so not the same as -gt .