Searching a string using grep with if statement

Question

I am trying to find a specific string from a file using grep with IF stmt. But I am not able to do so. The input file (filename: input_file_txt) carries a whole lot of string from which I am cutting down and taking only the values that are required to be searched on. I am doing using awk and writing it to file. Then, using grep, the string is searched. I end up with strange error which I am not able to figure it out. Giving the input file content, code I used and the error message I am getting

Content of input_file_txt :

123456 ----- abcd|abcd_vasa|nodatapts|1 ----- Assigned ----- @assignee ----- 0 ----- 2015-06-12
789011 ----- abcd|efgh_vasa|yesdata|56 ----- WIP ----- @assignee ----- 0 ----- 2015-06-12

And my code:

while

read LINE
echo "$LINE"
echo "going into the loop"

do

echo $LINE|awk -F\----- '{ print $2 }' >> /var/tmp/dummy_file
cat /var/tmp/dummy_file

if [ grep -q -i -E "abcd" /var/tmp/dummy_file ];then 

count=expr "$count" + 1
echo "$count"
echo "$LINE" >> /var/tmp/dummy_ticket_NA
cat /var/tmp/dummy_ticket_NA

fi

done < /var/tmp/input_file_txt`

Error message I am getting is:

123456 ----- abcd|abcd_vasa|nodatapts|1 ----- Assigned ----- @assignee ----- 0 ----- 2015-06-12
going into the loop
abcd_vasa

going into the loop

going into the loop

going into the loop

going into the loop

going into the loop

Expected O/P is:

123456 ----- abcd|abcd_vasa|nodatapts|1 ----- Assigned ----- @assignee ----- 0 ----- 2015-06-12
going into the loop
abcd_vasa
1
abcd_vasa

Answer 1

@kojiro's link points to your issue, '[' is a command (the test command), not part of the syntax of an if statement.

The if statement you've written:

if [ grep -q "abcd" /var/tmp/dummy_file ];then

is equivalent to:

if test grep -q "abcd" /var/tmp/dummy_file ]; then

To use commands like grep in if statements just elide the brackets:

if grep -q "abcd" /var/tmp/dummy_file; then
    ...
fi

Setting -x , -e and -u in your bash scripts, especially -x when you're debugging them can be very valuable as it will print every statement that is executed in your script. '-e' will cause your script to exit on the first unsuccessful command (fail fast) and '-u' will case any use of an undeclared variable to be an error.