How do I use a file grep comparison inside a bash if/else statement?

Question

When our server comes up we need to check a file to see how the server is configured.

We want to search for the following string inside our /etc/aws/hosts.conf file:

MYSQL_ROLE=master

Then, we want to test whether that string exists and use an if/else statement to run one of two options depending on whether the string exists or not.

What is the BASH syntax for the if statement?

if [ ????? ]; then
  #do one thing
else
  #do another thing
fi

Answer 1

if takes a command and checks its return value. [ is just a command.

if grep -q ...
then
  ....
else
  ....
fi

Answer 2

Try:

if [ -n "`grep \"MYSQL_ROLE=master\" /etc/aws/hosts.conf`" ]; then

Answer 3

just use bash

while read -r line
do
  case "$line" in
    *MYSQL_ROLE=master*)
       echo "do your stuff";;
    *) echo "doesn't exist";;      
  esac
done <"/etc/aws/hosts.conf"

Answer 4

Note that, for PIPE being any command or sequence of commands, then:

if PIPE ; then
  # do one thing if PIPE returned with zero status ($?=0)
else 
  # do another thing if PIPE returned with non-zero status ($?!=0), e.g. error
fi 

For the record, [ expr ] is a shell builtin shorthand for test expr.

Since grep returns with status 0 in case of a match, and non-zero status in case of no matches, you can use:

if grep -lq '^MYSQL_ROLE=master' ; then 
  # do one thing 
else 
  # do another thing 
fi 

Note the use of -l which only cares about the file having at least one match (so that grep returns as soon as it finds one match, without needlessly continuing to parse the input file.)