I'm a newbie trying to create a bash script. (I'm not sure whether this is a
"newbie level" question or not.)
I'd like to run a command (almost anything) in an if statement and direct
it's normal output to standard out but also test that output using grep to
use the result in the logic of the script.
For example, the output of mailq is "Mail queue is empty" if the mail queue
is empty, and a list of messages if there are any in the queue.
In butchered pseudocode, I'd like to do something like this:
* run mailq displaying output
* if mailq was empty (tested like: mailq | grep -c "empty")
do something
else
do something else
fi
I could do something like run mailq and capture the output in a file or
variable, then:
* print the file or variable
* test the file or variable
Or, I could run the command twice, but I want to avoid that.
I thought there might be an easier way (or a one liner type approach, which
while it might be one line might be fairly difficult (for me) to understand
;-)
I've started trying variations of the following, but I'm really just shooting
in the dark:
if mailq tee grep -c "empty"
Randy Kramer
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