Dear All,

I'm new to unix scripting. I'm trying to write an utility script which has to check if one file is newer than another one. $3 $4 $5 $6 are files .txt. Help me please.

for i in $3 $4 $5 $6
do
 if ["$1" -nt i ]
then
echo "$1 is newer than $i"
else
echo "$i is newer than $1"
fi

Almost. Try:

for i in $3 $4 $5 $6
do
        if ["$1" -nt i ]
        then
                echo "$1 is newer than $i"
        else
                echo "$i is not older than $1"
        fi
done

I did change, but it still doesn work. I modofied files, but still the same MESSAGE "file is not older other file"

And if you add the following command to your script as a line before your for loop:

printf '$1 is "%s"\n$2 is "%s"\n$3 is "%s"\n$4 is "%s"\n$5 is "%s"\n' "$1" "$2" "$3" "$4" "$5"

./mymk: 18: ./mymk: [avgs.txt -nt i]: not found
first.txt is not older than avgs.txt
./mymk: 18: ./mymk: [avgs.txt -nt i]: not found
second.txt is not older than avgs.txt
./mymk: 18: ./mymk: [avgs.txt -nt i]: not found
third.txt is not older than avgs.txt
./mymk: 18: ./mymk: [avgs.txt -nt i]: not found
avgs is not older than avgs.txt

What about correcting the syntax: replace if ["$1" -nt i ] by

  if [ "$1" -nt "$i" ]
      ^--- space ^--- dollar

file is not older than file~
file~ is not older than file~
file~ is newer than file1
file~ is newer than file2
file~ is newer than file3
file~ is newer than file4

You're missing a [space] after '[' (edit) and the $ too (thanks RudiC^^)