UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello everyone, I'm in desperate need of your help for this challenge I have below:
The run_dt_tbl has only 1 column and 1 row that contains a particular date in format mmddyy. I want to some how compare today's date with the date in this table that will be preset by someone else. If the dates match, run a bunch of procedures and unix commmands. If the dates do not match, do nothing. Below is the framework, please, please help lead me in the right direction to making this work. I am very new to unix scripting. Thank you so very much.


#!/bin/sh
today = date +%m%d%y /* setting today's date format to mmddyy */
run_date = 'the result of select * from run_dt_tbl'
if [$today -eq $run_date]
then
sqlplus -s <<EOF username/password @/dir_a/file1.prc > /dir_b/file1.log
@/dir_a/file2.prc > /dir_b/file2.log
exit
EOF

cp /dir_c/out1.txt /dir_d/out1.$(date +%m%d%y:%H%M%S)
else
do nothing /*not sure how to say do thing. should it be sleep? */

fi

This post looks quite similiar to the other one that you have posted - compare today's date with date in a file
I would almost consider this a duplicate thread. I will keep it open for now and see how it proceeds.

anbu23 has posted a reply to the other thread. See if that helps.

You don't need an "else" statement if you don't want anything done. That is, just do

Code:

if [ $foo = $bar ]; then
  blorp
fi

If you really want to preserve your "else" but still do nothing, you can do

Code:

if [ $foo = $bar ]; then
  blorp
else
  :
fi

In your case, "sleep" wouldn't make sense since you don't have a loop; all it would do is sleep for a certain time and then quit. Usually you would sleep in a loop to wait before looping again.