UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I know how to read a return code after executing a single command.
"echo $?". But I do not know how to sum the return code for a group of commands.

If I string 3 commands together and I do an echo $? all I get is the retunr code for the last command. Example below:

----------------------------
cat file1 | cut -f1-5 | sort > file2
status=$?

if [ $status -eq 0 ]; then
##continue with rest of my script
else
exit
fi
-----------------

I only get the return code for the last command, the "sort" command.

I want to make sure that the return code for all three commands added togther =0. Can this be done?

The problem is I need to amke sure all 3 commands ran succesful. My status check only tells me the last commadn worked.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Perhaps this post will help.

This doesn't answer your question directly, but you could mitigate the problem by getting rid of the "cat". You could do

Code:

cut -f1-5 file1 | sort > file2

Then you only have two commands to evaluate.

Here is a modified version of my earlier post reference:

Code:

#! /usr/bin/ksh

exec 3>&1
print "cat \$?=$(exec 4>&1;{ cat somefilethatdoesnotexist ; print $? >&4 ; } | tee -a logfile >&3) "
print "tee \$?="$?
exec 3>&-

output:

Code:

cat: cannot open somefilethatdoesnotexist
cat $?=2 
tee $?=0

Both exit codes were captured and displayed.