Why does this script not accept two arguments?

Code

#!/bin/sh
# http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/20886/13173
# http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/280830/16920
# $Id: pdf2eps,v 0.01 2005/10/28 00:55:46 Herbert Voss Exp $
# Convert PDF to encapsulated PostScript.
# usage:
# pdf2eps <page number> <pdf file without ext>

[ $# -lt 2 ] || echo "At least 2 arguments are needed" && exit 1

pdfcrop "$2.pdf"
pdftops -f "$1" -l "$1" -eps "$2-crop.pdf"
rm  "$2-crop.pdf"
mv  "$2-crop.eps" "$2.eps"

Run it as

pdf2eps 1 ./01-02-2002-01-02-03.pdf

Output

At least 2 arguments are needed

and no output file.

Why you cannot run here the command on 01-02.pdf?

Answers:

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Method 1

[ $# -lt 2 ] || echo "At least 2 arguments are needed" && exit 1

checks whether the number of arguments is strictly less than 2, and if it’s not, outputs “At least 2 arguments are needed”. You need to replace the || with &&:

[ $# -lt 2 ] && echo "At least 2 arguments are needed" && exit 1

I think the example you linked to in Safe way to install .sh script in /usr/local/bin? is actually easier to understand (and -ne is better suited since having more than 2 arguments is probably an error):

if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
    echo "Exactly 2 filenames are needed"
    exit 1
fi

Note too that you’re not supposed to specify the extension, so you should run the command as

pdf2eps 1 ./01-02-2002-01-02-03

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0