Question

Is is possible to prevent Wget from making an output file when there is an error like 404.

When I run

wget -O my.html http://sdfsdfdsf.sdfds

http://sdfsdfdsf.sdfds does not exist but Wget still creates my.html

---

I am making a bash script and want to make sure it stops if wget can’t get a valid file.

Answer 1

wget returns a non-zero response for non-200 replies (it seems).

This sample code worked for me with GNU wget:

#!/bin/sh

wget -O my.html http://sdfsdfdsf.sdfds

if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
    echo "ERROR"
fi

Here’s more info about $? from here.

$? the exit status of the last command executed is
given as a decimal string. When a command
completes successfully, it returns the exit status
of 0 (zero), otherwise it returns a non-zero exit
status.