On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 02:07:10PM +0930, Ian Blackwell alleged: > Craig White wrote: > >On my CentOS 4.6 server, this works... > > > >if [ -z `grep entry_chooser.js /var/log/httpd/access_log` ] > > > >On my CentOS 5.1 server, this gives me the following error... > > > >./test_file.scr: line 3: [: too many arguments > > > >Can anyone explain why the difference and suggest something that makes > >both cases happy? > > > >Thanks > > > >Craig > > > >_______________________________________________ > >CentOS mailing list > >CentOS at centos.org > >http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > > > > Not sure why 4.6 is allowing it, but your if test will be resolving to > something like this:- > if [ -z this line from your log file and another line and even more > lines until your if test fails with too many arguments I hope you don't > want me to keep typing to make the point ] > > To fix it, wrap the grep instead double quotes as well as the ticks - e.g. > if [ -z "`grep entry_chooser.js /var/log/httpd/access_log`" ] > Then the output from the grep will be seen as one long string, not a > multitude of words from your log file. Even better is to use 'grep -q' to avoid possibly large string expansions... if grep -q entry_chooser.js /var/log/httpd/access_log ;then -- Garrick Staples, GNU/Linux HPCC SysAdmin University of Southern California Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20080515/61bd13a5/attachment-0004.sig>