From owner-freebsd-questions  Thu Aug 10 13:54:39 2000
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mta02-svc.ntlworld.com (mta02-svc.ntlworld.com [62.253.162.42])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DEEFB37BC7B
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Thu, 10 Aug 2000 13:54:34 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org)
Received: from parish.my.domain ([62.255.96.131]) by mta02-svc.ntlworld.com
          (InterMail vM.4.01.02.27 201-229-119-110) with ESMTP
          id <20000810215338.OZGT3760.mta02-svc.ntlworld.com@parish.my.domain>;
          Thu, 10 Aug 2000 21:53:38 +0000
Received: (from mark@localhost)
	by parish.my.domain (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA00900;
	Thu, 10 Aug 2000 21:54:23 +0100 (BST)
	(envelope-from mark)
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 21:54:23 +0100
From: Mark Ovens <marko@freebsd.org>
To: Emmanuel Gravel <e_gravel@yahoo.com>
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: [OT] shell scripting, testing for files
Message-ID: <20000810215423.B254@parish>
References: <20000810191204.27627.qmail@web1607.mail.yahoo.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i
In-Reply-To: <20000810191204.27627.qmail@web1607.mail.yahoo.com>; from e_gravel@yahoo.com on Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 12:12:04PM -0700
Organization: Total lack of
Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 12:12:04PM -0700, Emmanuel Gravel wrote:
> First off, I'm not subscribed through this email
> address, but I will follow the online archives, so
> if you simply "reply" it'll take longer for me to
> answer :)
> 
> OK, here's my question. I'm trying to create a simple
> shell script which will test for the existance of a
> file whose name follows a pattern (ex: r*.txt). If
> I use "if test -e r*.txt" it works very well as long
> as I don't have more than one file with that pattern
> (in which case it chokes). If I use "if return=`ls
> r*.txt`" it works well if I have one or more files
> (in which case it saves the output to $return),
> however
> if there are now files which follow the pattern, I
> get an unwanted error message from ls (that I would
> want to suppress, but haven't found any option to do
> so). 

To suppress the error from ls(1) try `ls <pattern> 2>/dev/null`:

   $ ls fdjk
   ls: fdjk: No such file or directory
   $ ls fdjk 2>/dev/null
   $ 


> So neither method works for my purpose, and I
> don't know where to look. Anywone have an idea on how
> I can check for the existance of one or more files of
> a certain name pattern? Essentially, that's all I want
> to know (if there is, I can always do an ls later on).
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Emmanuel
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
> http://invites.yahoo.com/
> 
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message

-- 
		4.4 - The number of the Beastie
________________________________________________________________
51.44°N  FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org
2.057°W  My Webpage http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark
mailto:marko@freebsd.org                http://www.radan.com



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message