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I have a bash variable ($HTTP_COOKIE) which contains a string. I want to check if this string matches the content of a given file (token). I'm working on a busybox linux.

How should I do?

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What do you mean by “matches”? That file contains a regular expression? – manatwork Oct 14 '11 at 8:19
I mean that "match exactly byte per byte" the content of the file. – michelemarcon Oct 14 '11 at 8:23

1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote accepted 
 if [ "x$HTTP_COOKIE" = "x$(cat myfile)" ]
  then
    ....

keep the x in front in case the string may start with a minus sign (in that case it would be considered as an option to the command test ([ ... ]).

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5  
There's a bug in that code: $() removes trailing newlines, so you should check "x${HTTP_COOKIE}x" = "x$(cat myfile; echo x)" – l0b0 Oct 14 '11 at 8:54
3  
Valid if the string in question contains newlines, but most of the times one wants to get rid of newlines. – ktf Oct 14 '11 at 9:00

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