As I'm sure you've noticed, I used ksh instead of bash. When I was testing it, I was using:

Code:

        if [ $rc -eq 0 ]
        then    printf "%s: cat %s >> %s succeeded\n" "$0" "$src" "$dir/$df"
                # rm "$src"
        else    ec=1
                printf "%s: cat %s >> %s failed (%d)\n" \
                        "$0" "$src" "$dir/$df" "$rc" >&2
        fi

to make it easy to verify the code was doing way I expected. The shell grammar specifies that there is a compound list between the then and the else in an if clause but after looking more closely at the grammar (even though ksh93 accepts the clause as written), a portable script must have something between the then and the else and just a semicolon isn't enough.

If you want to see a list of directories as they are processed, remove the ;# ; if you want to remove the source files that have been successfully consolidated, change:

Code:

        then    ;# printf "%s: cat %s >> %s succeeded\n" "$0" "$src" "$dir/$df"
                # rm "$src"

to:

Code:

        then    rm "$src"

If you don't want either or both of those actions, change the if statement to:

Code:

        if [ $rc -ne 0 ]
        then    ec=1
                printf "%s: cat %s >> %s failed (%d)\n" \
                        "$0" "$src" "$dir/$df" "$rc" >&2
        fi

or, of course, you could just set a variable that you'll never use before the semicolon and leave the comments as they are.

Note that if you got the bash error:

Code:

bash: cat  >> / failed (0)

from the printf command I had, it means that you had a mismatched " somewhere before the cat %s >> %s succeeded\n".