Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!chinacat!sequoia!sequoia.execu.com
From: jam@sequoia.execu.com (James LeBas)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Zero byte DOS files
Message-ID: <23366@sequoia.execu.com>
Date: 24 Aug 90 19:32:58 GMT
Sender: jam@sequoia.execu.com
Reply-To: jam@execu.com
Distribution: na
Organization: Execucom Systems Corp.
Lines: 18

"What I am using amounts to hardly more than stone knives and bearskins."

Does anybody know how to get a .bat file to test for the length of another
file; specifically, for the presence of a zero byte file?

A .bat file I use tests for the presence of certain files and if not found,
pipes an echo to an errorlist file; in so doing, the errorlist file should
contain all the error messages and can be thrown to the screen at the end of
the .bat execution.  The problem is, this statement:

	if not exist goodfile.txt echo goodfile.txt missing >> errlist

creates errlist as a zero byte file, even if goodfile.txt exists.  The 
presence of errlist should indicate that there is a problem.  So if I can
test for errlist's length, and act on that (by deleting it, if zero) then
everything's copasetic.

Thanks.