What is wrong with this if/elif/else

English Programming/Scripting
1

I (would swear I have) tried every combination of quoting, “<”, and -lt.

if [ "$datediff" -lt 60 ]; then
    timeunit=1
elif [ "$datediff" -lt 3600 ]; then
    timeunit=60
elif [ "$datediff" -lt 86400 ]; then
    timeunit=3600
else
    timeunit=86400
fi

With the combo shown above I get:

/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 22: [: : integer expression expected
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 24: [: : integer expression expected
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 26: [: : integer expression expected

I am at a loss of where I have gone awry.

With everything quoted:

if [ "$datediff" -lt "60" ]; then

/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 22: [: : integer expression expected
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 24: [: : integer expression expected
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 26: [: : integer expression expected

Using “<” instead of “-lt”:

if [ "$datediff" < "60" ]; then
if [ "$datediff" < 60 ]; then

/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 22: 60: No such file or directory
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 24: 3600: No such file or directory
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 26: 86400: No such file or directory

if [ $datediff -lt 60 ]; then

/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 22: [: -lt: unary operator expected
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 24: [: -lt: unary operator expected
/home/jmoe/bin/elapsed_time.sh: line 26: [: -lt: unary operator expected
2

$datediff is empty

2 Likes
3

(sigh) Yes, it was. Thank you!