Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi there,

I am writing a script to look for tmp log files that have not been access within the last 10 days.

I am using the follwing command within the script:

find /var/tmp -name *log -atime -9 ¦xargs

What I would like to be able to do would be to display a message if there is no files listed..

How would I go about this

(I am new to Unix and scripting)

Rgds
Colin

Normally this is tested by checking the exit status of the find command. In general, unix commands return a 0 (zero) status is all is well. I am not absolutely certain here but I believe that if your find command fails (IE does not find any files) the all is 'not well' and it will not return 0.
So....

find /var/tmp -name *log -atime -9 ¦xargs
if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then
echo error message
fi

$? holds the return status of the immediately preceding command.
Note that 'echo error message' is *not* real scripting - just pseudo-code

)

Even if the file is not found the exit status will always be zero for
you can try,

Code:

FINDVAL=`find /var/tmp -name *log -atime -9 | wc -l`
if [[ $FINDVAL -eq 0 ]]
then
echo file not found
fi

Any specific reason for using xargs with find command here ??

Cheers,
K

When I try to use the code above I get the error message:

find path-list [predicate-list]

On the using the xargs with the find command it was the way that I was shown to write the command..

As I have sayed I am new to Unix..also I am using HP-UX

Rgds

Colin