$ver_name is a parameter that I am passing to this script. And I want the script to execute in one way if the $ver_name is passed and if it is not passed in an another way.
Also I did try other manipulations with the if-then-else statements to check if $ver_name exists but I was having many problems and that's why I resorted to using (?:)
I am expecting graph_dir to evaluate to = /home/user/phase/dir1/abinitio/run