How to negate/ "reverse mean" this search - that is "!" the meaning

Question

if [[ -n  $(find $path  -name "$string*")  ]]
then
    <stuff>
else

<stuff>

fi

I want to reverse the above search like

 if [[ ! -n  $(find $path  -name "$string*")  ]]
then
    <stuff>
else

<stuff>

fi

But it wont allow this because here I am checking the find commands output any clue.thanks for help

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 29 '14 at 18:50

2

You can reverse the search in find itself using:

find "$path" ! -name "$string*"

btw this is also valid:

[[ ! -n $(find $path -name "$string*") ]]

Or else you can use -z:

[[ -z $(find $path -name "$string*") ]]

answered Jan 29 '14 at 18:50

anubhava

I used the # 2 one but the mistake I made was [[! and it did not recognize the !- Kept 'no space' for 'space' . But EVEN after that was fixed the equivalence is lost `[[ ! -n $(find $path -name "$string*") ]]` then echo "Yah" else echo "Nada"` . will always yield Yah . So ! n does not negate it at all and that is probably because we are checking for the number . `! -name` is fabulous TY anubhava. – user1874594 Jan 29 '14 at 19:31

1 Answers1