Re: test binary

[James Youngman]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2005 at 01:39:46PM -0700, Kenneth J Vojtech wrote:

> We are seeing on AIX and HPUX that the 'test -e' does not complain
> when it finds multiple files in a given directory.  

The shell is expanding the command line arguments.  "test -e" does not
find "multiple files" - it doesn;t expand the wildcard.

> Was this functionality intentionally left out of the test binary for
> SuSe Linux?

As per Brian's earlier response, you are probably not using the test
binary at all in any case.

> Why would there be a difference of observed behavior between
> platforms?

Well, because they are designed to have different behaviour, I would
suppose.  I imagine that the "test" command built into bash probably
supports more types of test than the ones that come with AIX and HPUX,
while still adhering to the same set of underlying specifications.

Basically, you're trying to use "test" to do something it is not
designed to do.  Brian's earlier answer suggests some useful ways of
doing what you appear to need.  If that is not what you are trying to
achieve, please make clearer what you are setting out to do.  You
might find it helpful to read the suggestions at
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html.

Regards,
James.