options random home http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/archive/doc/unix/unixhelp/Unixhelp/scrpt_scrpt2.4.html (Einblicke ins Internet, ~06/1995)

Conditional statements

Conditional statements

Every Unix command returns a value on exit which the shell can interrogate. This value is held in the read-only shell variable $?.

A value of 0 (zero)signifies success; anything other than 0 (zero) signifies failure.