Check Directory for files & Email

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I'm working on a bash script to move files from one location, to two. The first part of my challenge is intended to check a particular directory for contents (e.g. files or other items in it), if files exists, then send the list of names to a txt file and email me the text file. If files do not exist, do nothing. It's not working as intended. Mailing the file is fine. Checking for contents, sending contents to file, is not. Assistance is appreciated.

Here's where I am.



file2=/directory/file/*
file=/usr/local/mailfile.txt


if [ -f ${file2} ];
 then
  ls -la $file2 > $file
fi

if [ -s ${file} ] ; then
  mail -s "$Subject" "$Recipients"  < $file
fi
2

file2 variable will expand to multiple values (file names from directory specified)

It cannot be used in if [ -f $file2 ] .. , the error will be to many arguments (it expects one not a list of files).

I cannot be sure about the exact requirement from your post..


file2=/directory/file/* # lets create a variable which contains all the files in a directory.
file=/usr/local/mailfile.txt


if [ -f ${file2} ]; # if a file exists (this will work only if a one file is a file2 directory)
 then
  ls -la $file2 > $file # list all the files into a txt file  ? You could do these without any variables or conditions ...
fi
....

So the entire code can be :

ls -al /directory/file/*  > ${file}.txt
if [ -s ${file}.txt ]; then # if ls output gave something to file.txt (there are files)
... mail or whatever
else
printf "%s\n" "Directory is empty, will do nothing"
fi
1 Like
3

Thanks for your response, Peasant. I had decided to do the following before your response, and is working great. It looks to see if any files exists, sends the contents to a text file and emails the output of the file. If no items exists in the directory, it does nothing. This is only a quarter of the entire script and what needs to be done. I may be posting additional questions on this.:

dir=/directory/file/*
file=/usr/local/mailfile.txt


if [ "$(ls -a $dir)" ] ; then
        ls -la $dir > $file
else
        :
fi

if [ -s ${file} ] ; then
  mail -s "$Subject" "$Recipients"  < $file
fi
4

You might want to try something like :

ls -al $dir > $file &&
if [ -s $file ]; then mail -s "$Subject" "$Recipients" < $file ; fi ||
printf "%s\n" "No files in directory or some other ls exit code error"

Hope that helps
Regards
Peasant.

5

Is the logic okay?
I would prefer a straight logic

if ls -al $dir > $file && [ -s $file ]
then
  mail -s "$Subject" "$Recipients" < $file
else
  printf "%s\n" "No files in directory or some other ls exit code error"
fi