site/docs/4.5/cmds/begin.html
begin; [COMMANDS ...]; end{ [COMMANDS ...] }
begin is used to create a new block of code.
A block allows the introduction of a new variable scope, redirection of the input or output of a set of commands as a group, or to specify precedence when using the conditional commands like and.
The block is unconditionally executed. begin; ...; end is equivalent to if true; ...; end.
begin does not change the current exit status itself. After the block has completed, $status will be set to the status returned by the most recent command.
Some other shells only support the { [COMMANDS ...] ; } notation.
The -h or --help option displays help about using this command.
The following code sets a number of variables inside of a block scope. Since the variables are set inside the block and have local scope, they will be automatically deleted when the block ends.
beginset -l PIRATE Yarrr...endecho $PIRATE# This will not output anything, since the PIRATE variable# went out of scope at the end of the block
In the following code, all output is redirected to the file out.html.
beginecho $xml\_headerecho $html\_headerif test -e $file...end...end \> out.html