Shell Programming and Scripting

Ice,

If you are executing temp log files for this, there is no need to create /tmp/c.complete.

Change your scenario as,
a.sh
...
...
touch /tmp/a.complete

b.sh
#! /bin/ksh
[ ! -f /tmp/a.complete ] && exit
...
...
rm -f /tmp/a.complete
touch /tmp/b.complete

c.sh
#! /bin/ksh
[ ! -f /tmp/b.complete ] && exit
...
...
rm -f /tmp/b.complete

But default way is to $? to get the status of script execution. Return on every script with success and failure with exit 0 or exit 1 so that you can keep track with $? variable.

sh a.sh
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
sh b.sh
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
sh c.sh
fi
fi

you can add more lines to keep tack log information.
hth.

have the succeeding scripts remove the marker file when they start if it exists ...

Code:

if [ ! -f /tmp/b.complete ]
then
    exit 0
else
    rm /tmp/b.complete
fi
...
...

Just an enhancement to muthu's reply..

Scripts should be written in such a manner that the least number of commands are invoked.

It should probably look like this

m -f /tmp/a.complete
touch /tmp/b.complete

changes to

mv /tmp/a.complete /tmp/b.complete

Ofcourse, this would be very helpful if you have many a scripts.

Vino

this is ok if the scripts are run sequentially by 1 script using 1 log file ... the code i offered is to fullfill the independent script run requirement ...

... you're absolutely right --- as long as they actually do what you want to accomplish ...