Shell Programming and Scripting

i want to check the readability of a file inside the script.
when i use

Code:

 
if [ ! -r $sourcef ]
    then
    echo the file "$sourcef" is not readable
else
     echo something
fi

i am getting the error : f: unknown test operator

Code:

 
when i tried to check the availability with 
if [ ! -f $fname ] 
i was getting the same error and methyl suggested me to use
if [ ! -e $fname ]
 
its because
The test "-e" is not valid in "ksh". It is valid in POSIX shells such as bash

put echo "<$fname>" before testline. Value of fname ?
More safety:

Code:

if [ ! -f "$fname" ]

Now your filename can include "whitespaces" and so on.

Thanks for the suggestion
putting double quotes helped me in a way.

But my main concern is..
how to check the readability as because

Code:

if [ -r  "$fanme" ]

still not working.
plz help

Posix test.
Ksh93 download.
Many of the *nix include only old ksh (=ksh88) = Posix done after ksh88.
Ksh93 test include your -e option.

I think that dash is only Posix full compatible. Include all posix features and nothing else.
Ksh93 include also Posix but it has also some extension, like bash and many others.

---------- Post updated at 11:45 AM ---------- Previous update was at 11:42 AM ----------

if [ -r "$fanme" ] or if [ -r "$fname" ] ?
My test -r works fine - testing have I read access or not.