.TH "begin" 1 "8 Feb 2007" "Version 1.22.3" "fish" \" -*- nroff -*-
.ad l
.nh
.SH NAME
begin - start a new block of code
.PP
.SS "Synopsis"
\fCbegin; [COMMANDS...;] end\fP
.SS "Description"
The \fCbegin\fP builtin is used to create a new block of code. The block is unconditionally executed. \fCbegin; ...; end\fP is equivalent to \fCif true; ...; end\fP. The begin command is used to group any number of commands into a block. The reason for doing so is usually either to introduce a new variable scope, to redirect the input or output of a set of commands as a group, or to specify precedence when using the conditional commands like \fCand\fP.
.PP
The \fCbegin\fP command does not change the current exit status.
.SS "Example"
The following code sets a number of variables inside of a block scope. Since the variables are set inside the block and have local scope, they will be automatically deleted when the block ends.
.PP
.PP
.nf

begin
	set -l PIRATE Yarrr
	...
end
# This will not output anything, since the PIRATE variable went out
# of scope at the end of the block
echo $PIRATE
.fi
.PP
.PP
In the following code, all output is redirected to the file out.html.
.PP
.PP
.nf

begin
	echo $xml_header
	echo $html_header
	if test -e $file 
		...
	end
	...
.fi
.PP
.PP
.PP
.nf
end > out.html
.fi
.PP