AmigaDOS script: Replacing characters and checking if directory is empty

[Frankie]

Hi everyone.

A couple of AmigaDOS shell scripting questions:

1. Is it possible to escape a filename or directory name? eg. Instead of "Example#File.txt", it can be escaped to "Example'#File.txt". I can't think of any way of doing string substitution.

2. Is it possible to check if a directory is empty?

Thanks!

[daxb]

1. Use Arexx. Maybe there is a way doing it in DOS but I don`t know.

2. "list Ram:Clipboards/" outputs: Directory "Ram:Clipboards/" is empty. If you examine this you should be able to check for empty dirs. Or use Arexx.

[emufan]

some aminet tools may help:
CheckEmpty V1.4 - Checks if a directory is empty
list of tools matching string.

[idrougge]

1. You almost wrote the solution yourself. An apostrophe will escape a wildcard character. This I never knew, but the AmigaDOS manual does state it:
http://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOS...DOS_Characters

[Frankie]

I don't want to use Arexx :P

I'd already messed with listing a directory and checking for output, but things became complicated when the directory didn't exist.

Anywho, CheckEmpty did what I want (thanks emufan!). I'd already checked Aminet for string tools but nothing does exactly what I want, so I wrote it in C

Thanks guys!

[pixie]

Originally Posted by Frankie

I don't want to use Arexx :P

I'd already messed with listing a directory and checking for output, but things became complicated when the directory didn't exist.

Anywho, CheckEmpty did what I want (thanks emufan!). I'd already checked Aminet for string tools but nothing does exactly what I want, so I wrote it in C

Thanks guys!

I was trying to check if a given string is either a file or a directory, but I can't get it to work.

I try to do something like this

ce ce >nil:
if warn
 echo option a
endif
if error
 echo option b
endif
if fail
 echo option c
endif

which gives me "ce failed returncode 10" instead of picking one of the choices

[Eaglef00t]

Add

FailAt 50

to the top of the script. By default, it is 10.

[pixie]

Originally Posted by Eaglef00t

Add

FailAt 50

to the top of the script. By default, it is 10.

It somehow works, still I should have something wrong in my script since it gives me always the same option wether I refer to a file, an empty folder or a folder

[patrik]

Two issues:
1. Running a command will overwrite the result code stored in local env RC from ce. Command for example is If. So the next If checks RC from previous command which is If.
2.WARN matches RC greater or equal to 5, ERROR greater or equal to 10 and so on, so even if 1. Was not an issue, if you got RC 10, it would match the two first If clauses.

Instead, after the ce line, save RC in a local env variable so you can keep the value over several if checks and compare against the exact values you are interested in in the If’s.

[pixie]

nice, didn't knew the error code was passed through $rc. It helps a lot