WHILE(1)

✨ WHILE(1) ✨

ok so this is the while page from the fish-shell manual, and bestie, it's about to make loops make sense 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

while — do a whole set of commands over and over and over again, like your fave playlist on repeat 🔁

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

while CONDITION; COMMANDS; end

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so here's the vibe: while runs CONDITION on loop, and every time that condition's exit status comes back as 0, it goes ahead and runs COMMANDS. no cap, that's the whole thing 🔥

The exit status of the while loop is the exit status of the last iteration of the COMMANDS that actually ran — or 0 if none of them ever ran at all. (This matches other shells and is POSIX-compatible, so it's giving very "I've done my homework" energy ✨)

You can use and or or for complex conditions, iykyk. And if you want even more complex control, you can hit it with while true containing a break. main character move, honestly 👑

The -h or --help option displays help about using this command. v helpful of it 🫶

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🎀 EXAMPLE 🎀

while test -f foo.txt; or test -f bar.txt ; echo file exists; sleep 10; end
# outputs 'file exists' at 10 second intervals,
# as long as the file foo.txt or bar.txt exists.

literally so iconic — it just keeps checking and keeps shouting file exists every 10 seconds as long as that file is around 😭💖

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👑 Copyright 👑

fish-shell developers

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and that's a wrap, bestie! 🌈 this was fish-shell manual page, version 4.9, dated Sep 08, 2026 — go forth and loop responsibly 💜🎀