When to use "|| true" in Bash?

Question

I was curious about "|| true" and wrote the following pair of examples.

Example#1

    #!/usr/bin/env bash
    
    rm some_random_file_that_does_not_exist
    
    echo "End of program"

When executed if produces the following result:

$ ./remove.sh
rm: cannot remove 'some_random_file_that_does_not_exist': No such file or directory
End of program

Example#2

#!/usr/bin/env bash

rm some_random_file_that_does_not_exist || true

echo "End of program"

Which produces the following result when executed:

$ ./remove.sh
rm: cannot remove 'some_random_file_that_does_not_exist': No such file or directory
End of program

The only difference I can tell is that in Example#1 the result code of the line that tries to remove the non-existent file is 1 while in Example#2 the result code is 0 (zero).

The way I understand this "|| true" is to ensure that the execution of the command(s) at the left of the "||" operator ends up with result code zero.

So my question is... Is there any other reason apart from this one that justifies the use of "|| true" at the end of a command in Bash?

Answer 1

|| true may be used to suppress immediate exit on error when the errexit shell option is set; that option is enabled with set -e, either by set -e explicitly in the script, or by invoking the script with an explicit interpreter and options: bash -e scriptname. In sh-like shells like bash, : (a utility that does nothing, successfully) may also be used in place of true, like || :.

It may also be used in Makefile recipes with the same purpose.