bash programming: testing for empty string

[bootleg86 bootleg86]

Hi,

I'm trying to find the time of a file by doing this.

filetime=`ls -l --time-style=+%a:%H:%M /tmp/1.txt | awk '{print $6}'`

if [ -z "$filetime"]; then
 echo "File does not exist"
else
 echo "Time file: $filetime"
fi

However, when the file does not exist and filetime returns an empty
string, it does not evaluate [ -z "$filetime" ] to true
I have also tried the reverse which is

if [ -n "$filetime"]; then
 echo "Time file: $filetime"
else
 echo "File does not exist"
fi

but I still get the same results.

What does $filetime evaluate to when the command exits with an error?

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