NEWBIE ....need some help with "unary operator expected" error msg

learning78 · 11-08-2010, 12:48 PM

if [ $games -gt 0 ] ; then
echo ""
echo "*** New Game! ***"
fi

this is the code that is producing the error, I am still in school and trying to get some assistance without going to my prof. The error msg is as follows:
[: -gt: unary operator expected
sed: -e expression #1, char 9: unterminated `s' command

why I am getting this I am not sure. I have tried "$games" but with no avail. Would really appreciate some assistance. Thx in advance

penguiniator · 11-08-2010, 01:31 PM

Are you sure that $games is assigned a value prior to the test?

chrism01 · 11-09-2010, 12:42 AM

Also, best practice is to double up on [ ] to [[ ]] ie http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/testcon...ml#DBLBRACKETS

iamwilliam · 11-09-2010, 05:10 AM

Hi,

Noticed the following from your post

Quote:

[: -gt: unary operator expected
sed: -e expression #1, char 9: unterminated `s' command

it seems there's a sed command that fails as well. Correct syntax for sed would be

Code:

sed -e s/new/old/

learning78 · 11-09-2010, 11:52 PM

Thank you guys very much I am going to made some adjustments and I'll let you know the fix. Thanks again. I think I'm gonna like it here on linuxquestions!

learning78 · 11-10-2010, 12:46 PM

so it turns out that I had accidentally commented out the declaration of games .....Thanks alot everyone I definitely got to spend alot of time debugging as I didnt notice that until the suggestion was made.

chrism01 · 11-11-2010, 12:21 AM

This is great for debugging

set -xv

use after the #! line