Problems with simple bash script

Question

I have the following task:

Write a program that, given a directory as argument, makes a tar file compressed with gzip and which name should be in the form "dirNameYYYY-MM-DD.tar.gz". If said file exists, it should return an error message.

What I tried:

#!/bin/bash
dir=$1
tarName=$dir`date '+%Y-%m-%d'`.tar.gz
if [ -e $tarName]
then
echo "That file already exists."
else
tar -cvz $HOME/$tarName '/'$dir *
fi

Why is this not working? Any suggestions on how I could fix it?

This furiously looks like homework, but whatever: Shouldn't it be ${dir}/* at the last line? — Jerska
– Jerska, Commented Jul 4, 2015 at 14:25

pasaba por aqui · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-04 14:30:21Z

2

Try:

#!/bin/bash
dir=$1
tarName=$(basename $dir)$(date '+%Y-%m-%d').tar.gz
if [ -e $tarName ]
then
  echo "That file already exists."
else
  tar -cvzf $tarName $dir 
fi

edited Jul 4, 2015 at 14:30

answered Jul 4, 2015 at 14:25

pasaba por aqui

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3 Comments

Eugeniu Rosca Over a year ago

Add a space before ].

YoTengoUnLCD Over a year ago

Thanks, that worked. What does the $(date) do vs `date`?

pasaba por aqui Over a year ago

In general, is the same. But Posix and with a syntax that usually causes less errors.

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