linux - Shell: analyse return -

this question has answer here:

• catching error codes in shell pipe 4 answers
• is there way catch failure in piped commands? [duplicate] 1 answer

i'm trying result of call

tmp=$(find /mydir/ -type f -mmin +1440 | xargs rm -f) m=$? 

unfortunately, if /mydir/ doesn't exist, result of $? still '0', there not problem. i'd not '0' if find returns nothing.

how should do?

due link:

bash version 3 introduced option changes exit code behavior of pipelines , reports exit code of pipeline exit code of last program return non-zero exit code. long none of programs following test program report non-zero exit code, pipeline report exit code of test program. enable option, execute:

set -o pipefail 

then

tmp=$(find /mydir/ -type f -mmin +1440 | xargs rm -f) m=$? 

will behave differently , recognize error. see previous post on stackoverflow

best,

jack.