File: coreutils.info,  Node: false invocation,  Next: true invocation,  Up: Conditions

16.1 ‘false’: Do nothing, unsuccessfully
========================================

‘false’ does nothing except return an exit status of 1, meaning
“failure”.  It can be used as a place holder in shell scripts where an
unsuccessful command is needed.  In most modern shells, ‘false’ is a
built-in command, so when you use ‘false’ in a script, you’re probably
using the built-in command, not the one documented here.

   ‘false’ honors the ‘--help’ and ‘--version’ options.

   This version of ‘false’ is implemented as a C program, and is thus
more secure and faster than a shell script implementation, and may
safely be used as a dummy shell for the purpose of disabling accounts.

   Note that ‘false’ (unlike all other programs documented herein) exits
unsuccessfully, even when invoked with ‘--help’ or ‘--version’.

   Portable programs should not assume that the exit status of ‘false’
is 1, as it is greater than 1 on some non-GNU hosts.