Question

I have a bash script with the following if statement:

if [ "$(PATH)/$(FILE)" != "`echo $(PATH)/$(FILE)`" ]; then [code omitted] fi

What could be the purpose of comparing a file path with the same file path echoed back?

The bash script is embedded within a rule in a Makefile. Thus, the notation for the variables is different than for a normal bash script. $(PATH), for instance, will be replaced by the PATH variable, which is defined within the Makefile.

Answer 1

It looks like the author of the Makefile expects PATH and/or FILE to contain variable references, something like

PATH='/$foo/bar'

so that $PATH is not necessarily the same as the expansion of $(echo $PATH).