Bash won't change variable value

Question

I am trying to change the variable reload from 0 to 1 as you can see in my code below:

for d in /home/*; do
  u="${d##*/}";
  reload=0;
  echo "Checking $u";
  if [ -e /home/$u/info/reload.php ]; then
    echo "FOUND!";
    reload=1;
  fi
done
echo $reload;
if [ $reload = 1 ]; then
  service apache2 reload
fi

The problem is that it doesn't get changed, $reload remains as 0, the output is similar to this (apache does not get reloaded):

Checking user1
FOUND!
Checking user2
0 #< this should be 1 not 0 :(

Why won't my bash variable change??

find /home/ -type f -name reload.php | egrep -q '/home/.*/info/reload.php' && service apache2 reload — phs
– phs, Commented Feb 10, 2013 at 1:56

johnsyweb · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-10 01:53:21Z

6

You're resetting reload for each user. If the file is not found for the last user, reload will be 0 when you exit the loop.

Suggested fixes (with indentation for readability):

#!/usr/bin/env bash

reload=0
for d in /home/*; do
    u="${d##*/}"
    echo "Checking $u";
    if [ -e /home/$u/info/reload.php ]; then
        echo "FOUND!"
        reload=1
    fi
done
echo $reload
if [ $reload -eq 1 ]; then
    service apache2 reload
fi

answered Feb 10, 2013 at 1:53

johnsyweb

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3 Comments

Goulash Over a year ago

Ah, whoopsie :o, thanks for your help :D, will accept this an the answer soon as it lets me..

glenn jackman Over a year ago

You might as well break after setting reload=1

johnsyweb Over a year ago

@glennjackman: I considered that as a performance improvement, but it would change the behaviour of listing which home directories contained the script, so omitted this.

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