In a shell, using 'command || exit 1' ensures what behavior?

• A. If command fails, the script exits with status 1.
• B. If command succeeds, the script exits.
• C. The script ignores the error and continues.
• D. It reruns the command until it succeeds.

Answer: (A)

The behavior hinges on how the shell treats the OR operator. The command runs, and if it finishes successfully (exit status 0), the right-hand side after the OR is not executed and the script continues. If the command fails (nonzero exit status), the right-hand side runs, which in this case is exit 1. That terminates the script with exit status 1, signaling an error to whatever started the script or to the calling process. In short, this pattern stops the script on any failure and explicitly reports an error code, rather than continuing as if nothing went wrong.