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Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job

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James H. H. Lampert:

> Could it be that |cron| is running it an entirely different shell, 
> that doesn't understand the |if| statement?
>
Despite what others have said, the answer to this question is no.  
Whilst you /are/ running two different shells, the problem is not the 
|if| statement.  Both of those shells understand that |if| statement.  
The difference between the shells involves the fact that you have 
assumed a particular exit status for the |cd| command for non-existent 
directories.  That's the exit status that the |cd| command results in, 
in one of your shells.  But it is not the exit status that results in 
the other.

Ironically, you are using the |[| command /anyway/, and that command has 
a direct method, its |-d| operator, for testing for the non-existence of 
a directory.  So you are going around the houses a bit in order to 
achieve what you could be achieving directly, and portably (without 
assumptions about exit statuses), with the |[| command itself.

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Weird shell script behavior in a cron job "James H. H. Lampert" <jamesl@touchtonecorp.com> - 2017-08-30 20:10 +0200
  Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job "James H. H. Lampert" <jamesl@touchtonecorp.com> - 2017-08-30 20:40 +0200
    Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job David Margerison <deltam@electrosonics.com.au> - 2017-09-01 16:50 +0200
  Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job Reco <recoverym4n@gmail.com> - 2017-08-30 20:40 +0200
    Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-08-30 20:50 +0200
  Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2017-08-30 20:50 +0200
  Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2017-08-31 08:10 +0200
    Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-08-31 14:10 +0200
      Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job Reco <recoverym4n@gmail.com> - 2017-08-31 14:20 +0200
        Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job "James H. H. Lampert" <jamesl@touchtonecorp.com> - 2017-08-31 17:40 +0200

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