[[ test ]] || <action> format not working in bash script - bash

Question

Following up with a question I asked yesterday, I have a script which runs three tests and reports back on each of them.
Tom Fenech provided me with some code that is simple and should address my concerns. However, it doesn't seem to work as expected.
pass=1
[[ test1 ]] || { echo 'test1 failed'; pass=0 }
[[ test2 ]] || { echo 'test2 failed'; pass=0 }
[[ test3 ]] || { echo 'test3 failed'; pass=0 }
[[ $pass -eq 0 ]] && echo 'one of the tests failed'
Let's just work with one of tests. Suppose I have a variable and I need to compare its value to a number:
[[ ${VAR} == '128' ]] || { echo "test failed"; pass=0 }
This always results in an error:
./magic_sysrq.sh: line 64: syntax error near unexpected token `else'
./magic_sysrq.sh: line 64: `else'
For context the script contains an if...elif...else...fi block in which these tests are run. The first (if) block runs code one way depending on the version of RedHat, the second (elif) runs it another way also depending on the RedHat version. The else block just says nothing was done due to an unexpected version.
I always hit the above error with the format of the code that was provided. I can get past the error if I remove the braces. However, this always results in the tests failing regardless of successful changes.
I've tried setting the format to
[[ ${VAR} == '128' ]] || echo "test failed" || pass=0
This isn't right either. It will result in a success message even if something fails. I've tried setting the second logical operator to && but that also results in the tests failed message despite the successful changes.
Can someone shed some light on what I might be doing wrong? I suppose I could just write out all of the if...fi blocks for each test as another suggested but that would be tedious at best.

Answer 1

Syntax.
[[ ${VAR} == '128' ]] || { echo "test failed"; pass=0 }
...is missing a semicolon; it needs to be:
[[ ${VAR} == '128' ]] || { echo "test failed"; pass=0; }
...otherwise, the } is interpreted as an argument (or, immediately following a variable assignment as here, as a command to run with that assignment applied to the environment), leaving the { unclosed, leading to the syntax error seen.
By contrast:
[[ ${VAR} == '128' ]] || echo "test failed" || pass=0
....is wrong for a different reason: If the echo command succeeds (and an echo command failing with an error is a very uncommon occurance), it'll never proceed to run pass=0. (This is true for any language that implements short-circuiting boolean logic, not just bash).

Answer 2

Curly braces, unlike parentheses, are not inherently special to the shell; they're only recognized in certain positions. Most significantly, a close-brace is only recognized as terminating a code block if it's found where the shell would otherwise expect the beginning of a new statement. That means you have to insert either a newline or a semicolon before every }:
pass=1
[[ test1 ]] || { echo 'test1 failed'; pass=0; }
[[ test2 ]] || { echo 'test2 failed'; pass=0; }
[[ test3 ]] || { echo 'test3 failed'; pass=0; }
[[ $pass -eq 0 ]] && echo 'one of the tests failed'
Note that since the last test is arithmetic, you could use ((...)). For example:
(( pass )) || echo 'one of the tests failed'