Name

false — return failure status

Synopsis

false [args...]

Note

Most shells have a built-in false command. See the manual for each individual shell for its built-in command. This command is more commonly used with exec(1) and nosh(1).

Description

false is a utility that simply exits with a non-zero exit status. It ignores [args...] but supports the standard --help and --usage options.

false will exit with a zero exit status if the standard --help or --usage options are used.

Do not rely upon false using any particular non-zero value.

Security

Some other external implementations of false are shell scripts that wrap a shell's built-in false or exit command. This is a security problem, as significant care must be taken to ensure that the shell correctly deals with people who symbolically link the script to other names (such as -i), who supply extra script arguments, and who set environment variables such as IFS.

This false is not a shell script.

Author

Jonathan de Boyne Pollard