Please use CODE tags when displaying sample input, output, and code.

You should look at the man page for your shell (presumably man sh for the Bourne shell). Look for the words "Background" and "background" in that man page for ways to run a process in the background and restrictions on what a background job can do. You don't seem to have anything in your script to run any processes in the background.

Also look for "Redirection" and "redirection" to see what > file does when it is used as a complete command, and what it does when it is used as part of a larger command.

And look for "Pipeline" and "pipeline". Having two processes in a pipeline that redirect standard output to the same file creates a race condition that may make it impossible to determine which process writing to that file will actually store lasting data in that file.

Then take a look at the man page for the cat utility. The command:

Code:

cat > file

doesn't necessarily create an empty file named file; it depends entirely on what cat reads from its standard input.

Is your understanding of part "a)" of your assignment that the output should include all of your files (including hidden files); or that the output should only include your hidden files?