Question

When myscript is executed with the following arguments it fails with error 255 (below)

         1     2     3                4       5     6     7
myscript value value /my/path/to/file my_file /tmp/ value value

Checking number of passed arguments

if [ ${#} -ne 7 ]
echo ${#}          // Actually prints 7
then
    echo "ERROR 255: Must provide the following 7 parameters:
                   one two three four five six seven"
    exit 255
fi

So … If the number is not 7, exit, but do tell what the number is .. 7.

Has the world gone mad? 🙂

Answer 1

Are you sure you don’t have a typo in your question?

echo ${#}          // Actually prints 7
if [ ${#} -ne 7 ]
then
    echo "ERROR 255: Must provide the following 7 parameters:
                   one two three four five six seven"
    exit 255
fi

Having the echo ${#} in between the if [ ... ] and the then is a syntax error, and makes my ksh blow up 😉 Otherwise I think your code looks correct.

But why not use newer ksh math evaluation features (maybe this will fix your problem).

echo ${#}          // Actually prints 7
if (( ${#} != 7 )) ; then
    echo "ERROR 255: Must provide the following 7 parameters:
                   one two three four five six seven"
    exit 255
fi

I hope this helps.