My if-then-else-end statement is failing in Lua; how can I fix it?

awesome-wm, lua, syntax-error

Solution

Try this:

{ "quit", (os.getenv("DE") == "gnome") and function() os.execute("/usr/bin/gnome-session-quit") end or awesome.quit}

`a and b or c` is like the C expression `a ? b : c`, provided that `b` is not `false`.

Problem

I'm trying to improve my `rc.lua` for the Awesome window manager. The default `rc.lua` sets up a menu with the following code: ``` myawesomemenu = { { "manual", terminal .. " -e man awesome" }, { "edit config", editor_cmd .. " " .. awesome.conffile }, { "restart", awesome.restart }, { "quit", awesome.quit } } ``` I use Awesome as the window manager for the GNOME desktop environment, so I want to have Awesome use the `gnome-session-quit` program instead of `awesome.quit`, but only if the environment variable "DE" is set to "gnome". Therefore, I replaced the fifth line with ``` { "quit", if os.getenv("DE") == "gnome" then os.execute("/usr/bin/gnome-session-quit") else awesome.quit end } ``` But when I reload the file, I get "unexpected symbol near if". How can I fix this, and what causes it?

Original source