Bash - sometimes creates only empty output - bash

Question

I am trying to create a bash dictionary script that accepts first argument and creates file named after that, then script accepts next arguments (which are files inside same folder) and outputs their content into file (first argument). It also sorts, deletes symbols etc., but main problem is, that sometimes ouptut file is empty (I am passing one non empty file and one non existing file), after deleting and running script few more times it is sometimes empty sometimes not.
#!/bin/bash
numberoffileargs=$(( $# - 1 ))
exitstat=0
counterexit=0
acceptingstdin=0;
> "$1";
#check if we have given input files given
if [ "$#" -gt 1 ]; then
#for cycle going through input files
for i in "${#:2}"
do
#check whether input file is readable
if [ -r "${i}" ]; then
cat "${i}" >> "$1"
#else redirect to standard output
else
exitstat=2
counterexit=$((counterexit + 1))
echo "file does not exist" 1>&2
fi
done
else
echo "stdin code to be done"
acceptingstdin=1
#stdin input to output file
#stdin=$(cat)
fi
#one word for each line, alphabetical sort, alphabet only, remove duplicates
#all lowercase
#sort -u >> "$1"
if [ "$counterexit" -eq "$numberoffileargs" ] && [ "$acceptingstdin" -eq 0 ]; then
exitstat=3
fi
cat "$1" | sed -r 's/[^a-zA-Z\-]+/ /g' | tr A-Z a-z | tr ' ' '\n' | sort -u | sed '/^$/d' > "$1"
echo "$numberoffileargs"
echo "$counterexit"
echo "$exitstat"
exit $exitstat

Answer 1

Here is your script with some syntax improvement. Your trouble came from the fact that the dictionary was both on input and output on your pipeline; I added a temp file to fix it.
#!/bin/bash
(($# >= 1)) || { echo "Usage: $0 dictionary file ..." >&2 ; exit 1;}
dict="$1"
shift
echo "Creating $dict ..."
>| "$dict" || { echo "Failed." >&2 ; exit 1;}
numberoffileargs=$#
exitstat=0
counterexit=0
acceptingstdin=0
if (($# > 0)); then
for i ; do
#check whether input file is readable
if [ -r "${i}" ]; then
cat "${i}" >> "$dict"
else
exitstat=2
let counterexit++
echo "file does not exist" >&2
fi
done
else
echo "stdin code to be done"
acceptingstdin=1
fi
if ((counterexit == numberoffileargs && acceptingstdin == 0)); then
exitstat=3
fi
sed -r 's/[^a-zA-Z\-]+/ /g' < "$dict" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | tr ' ' '\n' |
sort -u | sed '/^$/d' >| tmp$$
mv -f tmp$$ "$dict"
echo "$numberoffileargs"
echo "$counterexit"
echo "$exitstat"
exit $exitstat
The pipeline might be improved.