I am writing a script to verify some backups and am hitting a snag with using test operators. It seems that when testing if a variable is a directory it thinks all files are directories, even if they are not. Below is my script:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -d /vz/bkups/backup07-currentlist ]; then
echo is not a directory >> testdir.log
else
echo is a directory >> testdir.log
fi

the output from the script is:
is a directory

This file is NOT a directory:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24 Dec 20 12:47 backup07-currentlist

Am I missing something here? Thanks for any advise!

Roy

It looks like you have your echo statements around the wrong way. It should be:
The -d test will return true and execute the first echo statement if it is a directory. It will return fales and execute the second for everything else.

ok, i changed the echo order and still nto displaying correctly. My script now looks like this:
#!/bin/bash

if [ -d /vz/bkups/dedbackups/ ]; then
echo is a directory >> testdir.log
else
echo is not a directory >> testdir.log
fi

And my outout is now:
is not a directory

Here is the directory:
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 18 09:45 dedbackups

It seems that it always fiding that the directory test is always false. but not sure why.

What happens if you do the test without the trailing / (ie on "/vz/bkups/dedbackups")

wuthout the training /:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -d /vz/bkups/dedbackups ]; then
echo is a directory >> testdir.log
else
echo is not a directory >> testdir.log
fi

Still not a directory.

Do you have permission to see the /vz/bkups/dedbackups directory? When I create that directory structure here the script works fine. However, if I run chmod 0700 /vz and run it again I get is NOT a directory

drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Dec 18 09:46 vz

are the permissions on the directory. I am running the script as root so it should not be a problem.

well, decided to just 777 the entire dedbackups directory:
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Dec 18 09:45 dedbackups

And still says it is not a directory. Is there any other way to check to see if its a directory other than the way I am using? I just don't understand why it fail on my server.

Running ls -AlR /vz will show you what is there and whether you have permission to access it (but it looks like you already do). You could try some of the other tests from the command line to try and identify what is happening. For example:

I had the same problem. this code does work:

#!/bin/bash
# als_2009nov20. desa el separador de fitxers.
SAVEIFS=$IFS
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")
# als_2009nov20. modifica els fitxers.
cd $1
for fitxer in $(ls $1)
do
if [ -d "$fitxer" ]
then
echo "directori " /dades/scripts/trimtree $fitxer
else
echo "fitxer " /dades/scripts/trim $fitxer
fi
done
# als_2009nov20. recupera el separador de fitxers.
IFS=$SAVEIFS

What is the output from