Shell Programming and Scripting

if [ -z "$INPUTDIR" ] # -z means, if string is blank.
then
        echo "inputdir not set"
        exit 1
fi

if [ ! -d "$INPUTDIR" ] # -d means, if a directory by that name exists.
then
        echo "inputdir not a directory"
        exit 1
fi

# Set $1=inputdir/file1, $2=inputdir/file2, ...
# If it finds nothing, it will become the literal string inputdir/file*.
# Check if $1 exists, if it didn't, it found nothing.
set -- ${INPUTDIR}/${PATTERNB}*

if [ ! -e "$1" ] # -e means, file or directory by that name exists.
then
         echo "Nothing found matching $PATTERNB"
         exit 1
fi

if ! rm "$@"
then
        echo "Couldn't remove $@"
        exit 1
fi

echo "Removed $@"
exit 0