I know, it's risky, however, in context (IE when this script is called by the monitoring daemon) then it's not as bad as it seems. Thanks for the hint about the statement modifiers, I'll take a look, - this script was initially ported from a shellscript + netcat, so it's still got a few hangovers :)
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It's not pessimism if there is a worse option, it's not paranoia when they are and it's not cynicism when you're right.