Linux Shell if-statements about analyzing strings are equal

Question

I am a beginner in Shell Programming.I am confused when I execute a program about if statement Code is as follows

echo -n "word 1:"
read word1
echo -n "word 2:"
read word2
if test "$word1"="$word2"
   then echo "Match"
fi

I found that regardless of whether I enter the same string,it always prints "Match"

That's what I want to ask,Thank you!

Answer 1

Add spaces around = :

if test "$word1" = "$word2"

Without them, you are using test on the expression "$word1"="$word2" to test if it is empty.

Silly, I know.

From man test :

-n STRING

the length of STRING is nonzero

STRING

equivalent to -n STRING

Just to be perfectly clear: First, $word1 and $word2 are replaced with the content of the variables, say hello and world to be original, so you get the string hello=world . So indeed, no matter what you will put in these variables, you will get a non-empty string (because of the = ) and so the test will always pass.