On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 03:12:23PM +0000, Nicholas Clark wrote: > $ make -f 'This file does not exist' > make: This file does not exist: No such file or directory > make: *** No rule to make target `This file does not exist'. Stop. > $ echo $? > 2 > > > $ sed -f 'This file does not exist' > sed: couldn't open file This file does not exist: No such file or directory > $ echo $? > 4 > > > $ awk -f 'This file does not exist' > awk: cannot open This file does not exist (No such file or directory) > $ echo $? > 2 > > > $ scons -f 'This file does not exist' > scons: Reading SConscript files ... > > scons: warning: Ignoring missing SConscript 'This file does not exist' > File "/usr/bin/scons", line 161, in <module> > scons: done reading SConscript files. > scons: Building targets ... > scons: `.' is up to date. > scons: done building targets. > $ echo $? > 0 > > Every other utility that I'm aware of, if you tell it "open this file", will > treat it as an error condition if said file does not exist.
ant, for instance, wants to be absolutely sure you know it doesn't exist: $ ant -f 'This file does not exist' Buildfile: This file does not exist does not exist! Build failed OK, so the error message could be better, but even ant manages to its exit code to something nonzero: $ echo $? 1 I suppose it's too much to ask for programs to return the *same* error code (ENOENT comes to mind) when a file doesn't exist. Walt
