Send email if specified files do not exist

Question

I am new to unix scripting. I have to do something like :

In a folder /x everyday 10Pm and next day 3 AM, 2 files are placed. I have to write a script which will check the folder /x and confirm if the files are there or not and send mails accordingly everyday.

file formats:

• ValuationIR**02092013**_0326 (FileName pattern: ValuationIR<date>_<time>.csv )
• SnapshotIR**02082013**_2238 (FileName pattern: SnapshotIR<date>_<time>.csv )

Could someone help on how can I achieve the same, and which all commands would be required.

Answer 1

If you simply need to check if the two files exist and send an email if they do not, something like this should do nicely:

test -f file1 -a -f file2 || ( echo "Either file1 or file2 doesn't exist" | sendmail ... )

The paranthesis are not strictly necessary, but I'm including them for clarity. You can also use bash functions to make this a bit more readable and easily expandable, but that won't be shell-agnostic (though most shells have ways to do the same thing).

send_mail() {
    echo "message text" | sendmail ...
}
test -f file1 -a -f file2 || send_mail

This can be further expanded on if necessary, but the above should get you started.

When the script itself works as intended, you can add it to your user crontab to run it nightly at a specified time.