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From: bglenden@mandrill.cv.nrao.edu (Brian Glendenning)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: rm delayed?
Message-ID: <BGLENDEN.90Aug17013335@mandrill.cv.nrao.edu>
Date: 17 Aug 90 05:33:35 GMT
Sender: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Lines: 22


Is it ever possible for a shell script snippet like the following:

touch /tmp/bad.$$
[...]
# Success
rm /tmp/bad.$$
[...]
if [ -f /tmp/bad.$$]
then
	echo failed
	exit 1
fi

To falsely report failure? This seems to be happening on our system
(convex). Is it true that if the rm succeeds it does so immediately,
or is it possible that some sort of race can be causing a false
apparent failure? I wouldn't have thought so, but I can't quite see
where else the script might be going wrong. Thanks!
--
       Brian Glendenning - National Radio Astronomy Observatory
bglenden@nrao.edu          bglenden@nrao.bitnet          (804) 296-0286