I am trying to make a Bash script where the user will be able to copy a file, and see if it was successfully done or not. But every time the copy is done, properly or not, the second output "copy was not done" is shown. Any idea how to solve this?
if [ `cp -i $files $destination` ];then
echo "Copy successful."
else
echo "Copy was not done"
fi
What you want is
if cp -i "$file" "$destination"; then #...
Don't forget the quotes.
You version:
if [ `cp -i $files $destination` ];then #..
will always execute the else
branch.
The if statement in the shell takes a command.
If that command succeeds (returns 0
, which gets assigned into $?
), then the condition succeeds.
If you do if [ ... ]; then
, then it's the same as
if test ... ; then
because [ ]
is syntactic sugar for the test command/builtin.
In your case, you're passing the result of the stdout* of the cp
operation as an argument to test
The stdout of a cp
operation will be empty (cp
generally only outputs errors and those go to stderr). A test
invocation with an empty argument list is an error. The error results in a nonzero exit status and thus you always get the else
branch.
*the $()
process substitution or the backtick process substitution slurp the stdout of the command they run
With back ticks you are testing the output of the cp command, not its status. You also don't need the test command (square brackets) here.
Just use:
if cp ... ; then
...
In addition to testing the output verses status as correctly pointed out in the other answer, you can make use of a compound command to do exactly what your are attempting, without requiring the full if ... then ... else ... fi
syntax. For example:
cp -i "$files" "$destination" && echo "Copy successful." || echo "Copy was not done"
Which essentially does the exact same thing as the if
syntax. Basically:
command && 'next cmd if 1st succeeded'
and
command || 'next cmd if 1st failed'
You are simply using command && 'next cmd if 1st succeeded'
as the command
in command || 'next cmd if 1st failed'
. Together it is simply:
command && 'next cmd if 1st succeeded' || 'next cmd if 1st failed'
Note: make sure to always quote your variables to prevent word-splitting, and pathname expansion, etc...
Try:
cp -i $files $destination
#check return value $? if cp command was successful
if [ "$?" == "0" ];then
echo "Copy successful."
else
echo "Copy was not done"
fi