Install specific version of a yum pacakge or default to latest via environment variable

Question

I know that you can install a specific version of a yum package using the <package name>-<version> like this:

yum install docker-engine-1.8.2

But I'm trying to customize this using an environment variable such that if it's set, we use that version, else we use the latest. Is there some sort of pseudo-version number like "latest" that would work?

yum install docker-engine-${DOCKER_VERSION:-latest}

Obviously, using "latest" won't work, but is there something equivalent? Normally I would just use an if conditional here, but this is actually a line in a Dockerfile not a shell script, so it's rather limited in what it can do.

Answer 1

I found that ${VAR:+...} will let you use "..." if the var is set, otherwise it will be empty. So using that with ${VAR:-...} gives me what I'm looking for:

 yum install docker${DOCKER_VERSION:+-}${DOCKER_VERSION}

so if DOCKER_VERSION is set it to "1.8.2" will look like:

yum install docker-1.8.2

And if it's not set, it will look like

yum install docker