Originally Posted by Don Cragun

With the code being discussed in this thread:

Code:

...
export READDIR=/home/foobaruser/TDE
#export TEMP=/opt/foobar/$ENV/tmp
export TDE_BACKUP=/home/foobaruser/TDE/backup

cd $READDIR
...

as I said before, there is absolutely no way that the cd command shown in red above is going to "silently change directory to your $HOME if it can not use $READDIR to change". I said there were three ways that a cd command could move you to $HOME AND NONE of them are possible with this code.

I fully agree that ignoring exit codes from cd, cp, sftp, and other utilities is a recipe for disaster; but there is no way the above code is ever going to silently change directory to $HOME.

I would like to bring to your attention the following combination of commands in red, which has the potential of spread disaster.
In a script, cd into a directory and accepting it blindly, is very dangerous, for example:

The command cd will silently change directory to your $HOME if it can not use $READDIR to change due to being unset or empty. Once's in there I don't know the mayhem that it would do, but for sure you can kiss goodbye to your data in $HOME.

Some ways to minimize the risk is to use absolute paths and if you cd check $PWD or pwd, and compare with where you should be.

Furthermore, the content of the directory where you are executing the script from is at risk of being destroy or damaged, if $READDIR is set to a path that can not change into. Success of

Code:

if [ -d $READDIR ]

is not indication that you can cd into it, even if the directory exist.