.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2008
.\"	Jeffrey Allen Neitzel <jan (at) v6shell (dot) org>.
.\"	All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
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.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY JEFFREY ALLEN NEITZEL ``AS IS'', AND ANY
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.\" WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
.\" DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL JEFFREY ALLEN NEITZEL BE LIABLE FOR ANY
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.\"	@(#)$looptest: version 20081030 by Jeffrey Allen Neitzel $
.\"
.TH LOOPTEST 1 "October 30, 2008" "looptest-20081030" "General Commands"
.SH NAME
looptest \- loop iteration tester
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B looptest
\fIcount\fR \fIfile\fR
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B looptest
utility counts the number of lines in the specified
.I file
and compares it with the specified
.IR count .
It exits with an appropriate status
according to whether this comparison
is equal or not equal.
.PP
Notice that this utility has the
same effect as doing a:
.PP
.RS
wc \-l <\fIfile\fR | tr \-d '\ \\t' | grep '^\fIcount\fR$' >/dev/null
.RE
.PP
In fact,
it is a direct replacement for this command line that
provides a simpler, more efficient way for both
.IR osh (1)
and
.IR sh6 (1)
to perform count-controlled loops.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
The
.B looptest
utility exits with one of the following values:
.TP
0
The
.I file
line count is equal to
.IR count .
.TP
1
The
.I file
line count is not equal to
.IR count .
.TP
2
An error was detected.
.SH "EXAMPLES"
Each of the following command files causes
the shell to perform a loop that prints
80 dots to the standard output.
.PP
.nf
	: Print dots with osh and sh6.

	( : ) >prdots.$$

	: Loop
		echo -n .
		echo >>prdots.$$
		if ! { looptest 80 prdots.$$ } goto Loop

	echo ; rm -f prdots.$$
.fi
.PP
.I Osh
also offers another way to test the
.B looptest
exit status with the `$s' special parameter
as illustrated below.
.PP
.nf
	: Print dots with osh.

	( : ) >prdots.$$

	: Loop
		echo -n .
		echo >>prdots.$$
		looptest 80 prdots.$$
		if $s != 0 goto Loop

	echo ; rm -f prdots.$$
.fi
.SH "SEE ALSO"
osh(1),
sh6(1)
.PP
Looptest home page:
http://v6shell.org/looptest/
.SH AUTHOR
This implementation of
.B looptest
is written by Jeffrey Allen Neitzel.
.SH LICENSE
See
http://v6shell.org/looptest/LICENSE
for full details.