true -- Command

Unconditional success
true

true does nothing, successfully.  It always returns zero (i.e., true).

true  is useful  in shell  scripts  when you  want to  execute a  condition
indefinitely.  For example, the following example

    while true; do
        date
    done

prints the current date and time  on your screen forever (or at least until
interrupted by typing <ctrl-C>).

See Also

commands,
false,
ksh,
sh

Notes

Under the Korn shell, true is an alias for the partial-comment :.

© 2012 by Stephen A. Ness