Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!mcnc!uvaarpa!mmdf From: tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl Subject: Re: 'awk' test for file existance fails with nawk and gawk Message-ID: <1991Feb25.172540.15875@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> Date: 25 Feb 91 17:25:40 GMT Sender: mmdf@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU (Uvaarpa Mail System) Reply-To: tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 17 From: djm@eng.umd.edu (David J. MacKenzie) Date: 24 Feb 91 05:34:52 GMT In other words, it relies on: awk '' files... to exit with a nonzero status if not all of the files exist. This seems to be what "old" awk does. However, "new awk" (/bin/nawk on SunOs 4.1) prints nothing and exits with status 0 in this case, and GNU awk prints a usage message. ... and people keep claiming that awk is portable. :-) Well, you could use perl to test if all of the files are present.... no, wait.... :-) - Ted