wget exit code with -nc

Question

If I try downloading a file which already exists with wget using the --no-clobber option, it works as expected but the exit code is 1 which is crashing my scripts. Why is the exit code 1 and how can I work around it?

$ wget -nc --continue --output-document "/User/Downloads/download.txt" "https://example.com/download.txt"
File ‘/User/Downloads/download.txt’ already there; not retrieving.
$ echo $?
1

Answer 1

I'm having the same problem. Seems like a bug to me too.

My work-around is to add a "true" statement at the end of the line, e.g.:

$ wget -nc --continue --output-document "/User/Downloads/download.txt" "https://example.com/download.txt"; true

Note that a problem with this solution is that it always returns true (success) even if the file was not successfully downloaded.