UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

With the if statement:

if [ -f /098/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}-12AM.gz \
-a -f /789/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}-12AM.gz \
-a -f /456/access.${PREV_DAY_DAY}${PREV_DAY_MONTH}-11PM.gz \
-a -f /123/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}-12AM.gz ]


How can I make it so it accepts a wildcard after the ${CURR_DAY_MONTH} variable?

Putting

a -f /webtrends/SUN/mrw2/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}*

won't work, right? I think I need some kind of special character so it knows the wildcard is valid, but I am not sure what to put. Bascially, I want to check to see if the file is there, but the 12AM and the .gz part are not always present, so I don't want the check to fail simply because the file is not zipped.

Try something like this:

Code:

let all_there=0
ls /098/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}*
let all_there=all_there+$?
ls /789/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}* 
let all_there=all_there+$?
ls /456/access.${PREV_DAY_DAY}${PREV_DAY_MONTH}* 
let all_there=all_there+$?
ls /123/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}* 
let all_there=all_there+$?

if [ all_there -eq 0 ] ; then
   # --------- do stuff here because the files are there
fi

You can use find as well - just something that will error out if it cannot find a file.

What does the $? signify?

I think you want to do stuff like:

ls /098/access.${CURR_DAY_DAY}${CURR_DAY_MONTH}* >/dev/null 2>&1

That way you won't see the output.

Commands like ls return a code when they exit. In the case of ls, 0 means it worked. And ls will return a 2 or something if no files were found. In the shell $? is the exit code from the last command.