In bash script, I need `ls` to exit >0 if the file I'm trying to list is not found, but `ls` will still exit 0

[root@sirvjames01 tmp]# cat tailjames-smtp
#! /bin/sh
#
# JAMES script to tail latest SMTP logs
#
# description: This is NOT the JAMES STDOUT dump, for that just 'tail -f /var/log/james/james'

# Variables
DATE=`date +%F`
LATEST_SMTP_LOG_FILE=`ls -lta /home/james/current/apps/james/logs/smtpserver-$DATE-* | awk '{ print $9 }' | head -1` 2>&1
echo $?
[root@sirvjames01 tmp]#
[root@sirvjames01 tmp]# ll /home/james/current/apps/james/logs/smtpserver-2012-10-12-34-56.log
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 0 Oct 12 13:02 /home/james/current/apps/james/logs/smtpserver-2012-10-12-34-56.log
[root@sirvjames01 tmp]#
[root@sirvjames01 tmp]# sh tailjames-smtp
0
[root@sirvjames01 tmp]#

... but when I remove the file, LS still exits "0"

[root@sirvjames01 tmp]# rm -rf /home/james/current/apps/james/logs/smtpserver-2012-10-12-34-56.log
[root@sirvjames01 tmp]# sh tailjames-smtp
ls: cannot access /home/james/current/apps/james/logs/smtpserver-2012-10-12-*: No such file or directory
0
[root@sirvjames01 tmp]#

$? is not referencing the exit code of ls, since ls was not the last command that was run. The last command that was run was head, so that's the exit code you're checking.

I would store the output of ls into a temporary variable, then check the exit code, then do the awk and head processing as necessary.

Also, why are you doing a long listing with ls and then using awk to just pull off the filename? Drop the -l off of your ls command and skip the awk altogether.

1 members found this post helpful.

Instead of checking the exit status of the command, you can check if the variable LATEST_SMTP_LOG_FILE is empty or not, e.g.
In alternative you can try the find command, so that you have not to deal with the redirection of the standard error:

2 members found this post helpful.

Bash has a variable PIPESTATUS which holds the status of every command in a pipe.
In your case you should test $PIPESTATUS[0] which is the return status of the first command in the pipe, "ls".

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you all