Testing exit status

[MarcusFenix]

I am writing a simple script to test whether a value entered is a directory or not and provide an exit status.

This is what I was able to accomplish so far:

• Display an appropriate error message and exit with status 3 if no parameters are given.

• display an appropriate error message and exit with status 4 if the source directory does not exist.

The issue is:

• display an appropriate error message and exit with status 5 if the source is not a directory.

Here is the code block:

DIR="$1"

while [ $# -lt 1 ]
do
        echo "Incorrect Usage"
        exit 3
done

if
[ -d "$DIR" ] || echo "Does not exist" && test -d "$DIR" || echo "Not valid Directory"
then
exit 4 && exit 5
fi

Each time the script is executed, and when I type "echo $?" I only get exit status 4. The script works where it can identify if the directory exists and if in fact it is an actual directory.

I believe that the "exit 4" statement ends the script, and the "exit 5" portion is never executed. Is there any method I can use so that exit status 5 properly displays if the value is not a valid directory?

Any advice on this issue would be appreciated.

[Cabhan]

This sounds like a homework question, so I will be closing this thread.

Two hints:

1) [ -d "$DIR"] and test -d "$DIR" do the same thing. Nowhere are you checking for existence independently of whether or not it is a directory.

2) "exit 4 && exit 5" means "exit with status 4, then exist with status 5". Since exiting with status 4 means that you will not run any more commands, of course you cannot exit with another exit status afterwards.