asked on

Need help with BASH script to check existence of file and use an exclude list

I'd like to create a Bash Script that will allow me to check the existence of a file in a directory and touch that file if it doesn't exist. At the same time, I would like an exclusion list that will exclude certain directories from having that file touched. Please see what I have so far. I'm stuck on the excludes file:

#!/bin/bash

BASEDR="/var/lib/test"
TEMPFILE="/tmp/export_tmp"
CONFFILE="/root/conf/excludes.conf"

for i in `find $BASEDR -name "*stuff" -print`;

do

ls $i/hello > /dev/null 2>&1

rc=$?

[ $rc -ne 0 ] && echo "$i doesn't have the file."

done

madan1278

Actually you don't need to test the existence of the file as touch command will do nothing if a file exists already...but I have just included a check for this as well. You just need to focus on the exclude list.

I don't have a system to test the below code but it should work..
#!/usr/bin/bash
#Input the filename with absolute path as a argument to the script.
FILE_TO_CHECK=$1
#Input the absolute path of dirs you want to exclude in the exclude file referenced below
EXCLUDE_LIST=`cat /tmp/exclude.txt` #Variable just for reference
FILENAME=`basename $1`
DIRNAME=`dirname $1`
grep $DIRNAME /tmp/exclude.txt > /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
[ ! -f $1 ] && touch $1
else
echo "This dir is excluded"
fi

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Frank Contrepois

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unix_admin_1234

ASKER

madan1278. Your script is close. However, the FILE_TO_CHECK need to include a way to find the files in a specific directory. For example, I would want the script to look under /var/reps/ and look for a directory ending in .test/filename. There are a lot of directories and subdirectories which include this pattern. Please let me know if this doesn't make sense.

Thanks.

unix_admin_1234

ASKER

Also, I want to include the files to excludes, and not the directories.

Thanks.

Tintin

Your requirements are very unclear.

It appears you are wanting to check for the existence of the file 'hello' in directories and sub-directories under /var/lib/test (excluding certain directories) and creating hello if it doesn't exist.

Is that correct?

If so, then you can do

#!/bin/bash
BASEDIR=/var/lib/test
CONFFILE=/root/conf/excludes.conf

find $BASEDIR -name "hello"  | grep -vf $CONFFILE | xargs -I touch {}

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madan1278

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unix_admin_1234

ASKER

Tintin, that's exactly what I am looking to do. I like the brevity of your script, but I'm unclear what the xargs -I touch {} does. I tried to run the script and keep getting the error:
+ xargs -I touch '/test{}'
xargs: /git-daemon-export-ok{}: No such file or directory

Thanks.

Tintin

Sorry, my typo. It can actually be simplified to

find $BASEDIR -name "hello" | grep -vf $CONFFILE | xargs touch

unix_admin_1234

ASKER

Both scripts worked.

Thanks.