Solaris

I am new to unix shell scripting, i was going through the existing shell scripts but couldn't able to get enough information on below syntaxes,i mean the symbols $# & $? used in the if loop. what exactly are they? what is the inline meaning, Could you please throw some light.

Examples:

1)
if [ $# -eq 3 ]
then
numFiles=`cat $3 | wc -l | sed 's/ //g'`
#echo $numFiles
count=0

2) if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
echo "File $line moved to archive on `date +%D`">>$logFile
#echo $'\n' >>$logFile
else
echo "File $line can not be deleted">>$logFile
fi

Extracted from Solaris Bourne shell man page:

In the examples:

1. If the number of parameter is equal to 3, then...

2. If the error code of previous application is 0, then...

$# stores the count of command file arguments. This 'IF' check ensures that there should be exactly 3 command line arguments including the script name itself

$? stores the status of last system call. $? -eq 0 means that the last command was successfully executed

I created the following script file and was getting an error could you please let me know where i am wrong. My idea is to check whether the for loop succeeded in creating or appending data into the file if so display a success message. Though the file has been created successfully my IF loop is not working properly it seems.

######
for i in `ls -rt *_FI.csv`
do
echo $i >> $currdir/finance.list
done

if [$? -eq 0]
then
echo "Finance list file has been generated"
else
echo "Error in preparing the Finance list file"
fi
##############

Error Message:
./gpm.ksh[17]: [0: not found
Error in preparing the Finance list file

I dont know about ksh, but in Bourne or Bourne-alike shells, the correct syntax for if condition is:

Code:

if [ $? -eq 0 ]

You need whitespace after and before square bracket.

Btw, you should do all your shell scripting jobs in Bourne (sh) shell