UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am using the code below to write a command to launch a script only if the number of users on the system is less than 10. The code below isn't working. Any suggestions? HELP..

if [ who | wc -l ] && [ -lt 10 ]; then frizzle ; fi

Try this:
if [ `who | wc -l` -lt 10 ] ; then frizzle ; fi

Thank you so much, I worked on that for an hour. I think I had my shell comands messed up.

Did you understand the use of back tics?

You can capture the output of a command or series of commands to a variable to use in a script.

Here is an example.

USERS=`who|wc -l` Saves the output to the variable "USERS". in a script you would put this above your code.

You could write.

#!/bin/sh

USERS=`wc|who -l`

If $USERS -lt 10; then frizzle; fi


This usually works best with an output that is numeric so you can compare it to something.