What is the difference between double-ampersand (&&) and semicolon (;) in Linux Bash?

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The && operator is a boolean AND operator: if the left side returns a non-zero exit status, the operator returns that status and does not evaluate the right side (it short-circuits), otherwise it evaluates the right side and returns its exit status. This is commonly used to make sure that command2 is only run if command1 ran successfully.

The ; token just separates commands, so it will run the second command regardless of whether or not the first one succeeds.

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