How to look for makefile.

visionanand · 02-23-2014, 09:24 PM

Hi,

I am trying to write a shell script to see if "makefile" is present in a directory. Here is the code.

if [ -a makefile ]; then {

This is giving me an error "test: argument expected". What am i doing wrong here. pls help.

Thanks.

evo2 · 02-23-2014, 11:00 PM

Hi,

"-a" is an "and" operator, so test ("[" is one way of running the "test" command) is expecting an argument on its left hand side. You probably want to use the "-e" operator. See the test man page for more information.

HTH,

Evo2.

visionanand · 02-24-2014, 11:15 AM

Thanks for the reply. Even when i use "-e" operator I see the same error msg.

suicidaleggroll · 02-24-2014, 11:24 AM

Please post the entire code, chances are there's an error somewhere else. For example, at the end of your snippet you have "then {". That's not the syntax for if statements in BASH.

Code:

if [ -e makefile ]; then
   echo "I found a makefile"
else
   echo "I didn't find a makefile"
fi

visionanand · 02-25-2014, 10:17 AM

The code mentioned above worked in bash shell. i was working in tcsh shell. Im not sure if that caused the issue. Thanks for the help guys.

John VV · 02-25-2014, 12:28 PM

Also it might have a CAPITAL M
both
"makefile"
and
"Makefile"
are used

some makefiles ONLY need "make" ran
others NEED options like:

Code:

make -olinux 
make gimp_plugin
make gmic
make test 
make cmake

and some "makefiles" are only a placeholder to run cmake or qmake
i have seen ones that run

Code:

autoreconf -iv
./configure
then
make

you really DO NEED to read that file FIRST

suicidaleggroll · 02-25-2014, 12:29 PM

You can't use bash syntax with the tcsh interpreter.

You can use this reference to change the syntax to tcsh:
http://joelinoff.com/blog/?page_id=235

Or if you want to stick to bash syntax, you should put a

Code:

#!/bin/bash

at the top of your script to force it to use the bash interpreter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_(Unix)