finger command

qfwfq · #1 (**permalink**) 11-10-2006

Hello all,

Here is what I am trying to do. If a user exist, then send an echo "EXIST" or else "DOES NOT EXIST". (under HP-UX)

Kind of:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/sh
USER=mylogin

finger $USER

if $? = 0
then
     echo "EXIST""
else
     echo "DOES NOT EXIST"
fi

Does not work at all. Any idea?

odys · #2 (**permalink**) 11-10-2006

I have no access to HP-UX and finger is not present in my system.
But I would try "who" piped to "grep" for this purpose.

odys · #3 (**permalink**) 11-10-2006

Quote:

Code:

if $? = 0

Does not work at all.

It should be

Code:

if [ $? -eq 0 ];

kamitsin · #4 (**permalink**) 11-11-2006

Checked on HP-UX system

......................................
#!/usr/bin/sh
USER=mylogin

finger $USER > /dev/null ### Will not display the output of finger command

if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
echo "EXIST""
else
echo "DOES NOT EXIST"
fi
........................................

Tornado · #5 (**permalink**) 11-11-2006

Finger is disabled on all our servers, just like talk, and rwall are.

You would be better of getting the info from the passwd file.

nilesrex · #6 (**permalink**) 11-16-2006

finger wont help as when I gave bogus username it still gave and o/p for $? as 0

Cheers,

johnf · #7 (**permalink**) 11-21-2006

Try:

cat /etc/passwd | grep username 1>/dev/null 2>&1

if [ $? != 0 ]
then
echo user does not exist
else
echo user does exist
fi

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