This checks if a file exists:
#!/bin/bash
FILE=$1
if [ -f $FILE ]; then
echo "File $FILE exists."
else
echo "File $FILE does not exist."
fi
How do I only check if the file does not exist?
The test command (written as [ here) has a "not" logical operator, ! (exclamation mark):
if [ ! -f /tmp/foo.txt ]; then
echo "File not found!"
fi
Bash File Testing
-b filename - Block special file
-c filename - Special character file
-d directoryname - Check for directory Existence
-e filename - Check for file existence, regardless of type (node, directory, socket, etc.)
-f filename - Check for regular file existence not a directory
-G filename - Check if file exists and is owned by effective group ID
-G filename set-group-id - True if file exists and is set-group-id
-k filename - Sticky bit
-L filename - Symbolic link
-O filename - True if file exists and is owned by the effective user id
-r filename - Check if file is a readable
-S filename - Check if file is socket
-s filename - Check if file is nonzero size
-u filename - Check if file set-user-id bit is set
-w filename - Check if file is writable
-x filename - Check if file is executable
How to use:
#!/bin/bash
file=./file
if [ -e "$file" ]; then
echo "File exists"
else
echo "File does not exist"
fi
A test expression can be negated by using the ! operator
#!/bin/bash
file=./file
if [ ! -e "$file" ]; then
echo "File does not exist"
else
echo "File exists"
fi
Negate the expression inside test (for which [ is an alias) using !:
#!/bin/bash
FILE=$1
if [ ! -f "$FILE" ]
then
echo "File $FILE does not exist"
fi
The relevant man page is man test or, equivalently, man [ -- or help test or help [ for the built-in bash command.
Alternatively (less commonly used) you can negate the result of test using:
if ! [ -f "$FILE" ]
then
echo "File $FILE does not exist"
fi
That syntax is described in "man 1 bash" in sections "Pipelines" and "Compound Commands".
[[ -f $FILE ]] || printf '%s does not exist!\n' "$FILE"
Also, it's possible that the file is a broken symbolic link, or a non-regular file, like e.g. a socket, device or fifo. For example, to add a check for broken symlinks:
if [[ ! -f $FILE ]]; then
if [[ -L $FILE ]]; then
printf '%s is a broken symlink!\n' "$FILE"
else
printf '%s does not exist!\n' "$FILE"
fi
fi
It's worth mentioning that if you need to execute a single command you can abbreviate
if [ ! -f "$file" ]; then
echo "$file"
fi
to
test -f "$file" || echo "$file"
or
[ -f "$file" ] || echo "$file"
I prefer to do the following one-liner, in POSIX shell compatible format:
$ [ -f "/$DIR/$FILE" ] || echo "$FILE NOT FOUND"
$ [ -f "/$DIR/$FILE" ] && echo "$FILE FOUND"
For a couple of commands, like I would do in a script:
$ [ -f "/$DIR/$FILE" ] || { echo "$FILE NOT FOUND" ; exit 1 ;}
Once I started doing this, I rarely use the fully typed syntax anymore!!
To test file existence, the parameter can be any one of the following:
-e: Returns true if file exists (regular file, directory, or symlink)
-f: Returns true if file exists and is a regular file
-d: Returns true if file exists and is a directory
-h: Returns true if file exists and is a symlink
All the tests below apply to regular files, directories, and symlinks:
-r: Returns true if file exists and is readable
-w: Returns true if file exists and is writable
-x: Returns true if file exists and is executable
-s: Returns true if file exists and has a size > 0
Example script:
#!/bin/bash
FILE=$1
if [ -f "$FILE" ]; then
echo "File $FILE exists"
else
echo "File $FILE does not exist"
fi
You can do this:
[[ ! -f "$FILE" ]] && echo "File doesn't exist"
or
if [[ ! -f "$FILE" ]]; then
echo "File doesn't exist"
fi
If you want to check for file and folder both, then use -e option instead of -f. -e returns true for regular files, directories, socket, character special files, block special files etc.
You should be careful about running test for an unquoted variable, because it might produce unexpected results:
$ [ -f ]
$ echo $?
0
$ [ -f "" ]
$ echo $?
1
The recommendation is usually to have the tested variable surrounded by double quotation marks:
#!/bin/sh
FILE=$1
if [ ! -f "$FILE" ]
then
echo "File $FILE does not exist."
fi
In
[ -f "$file" ]
the [ command does a stat() (not lstat()) system call on the path stored in $file and returns true if that system call succeeds and the type of the file as returned by stat() is "regular".
So if [ -f "$file" ] returns true, you can tell the file does exist and is a regular file or a symlink eventually resolving to a regular file (or at least it was at the time of the stat()).
However if it returns false (or if [ ! -f "$file" ] or ! [ -f "$file" ] return true), there are many different possibilities:
the file doesn't exist
the file exists but is not a regular file (could be a device, fifo, directory, socket...)
the file exists but you don't have search permission to the parent directory
the file exists but that path to access it is too long
the file is a symlink to a regular file, but you don't have search permission to some of the directories involved in the resolution of the symlink.
... any other reason why the stat() system call may fail.
In short, it should be:
if [ -f "$file" ]; then
printf '"%s" is a path to a regular file or symlink to regular file\n' "$file"
elif [ -e "$file" ]; then
printf '"%s" exists but is not a regular file\n' "$file"
elif [ -L "$file" ]; then
printf '"%s" exists, is a symlink but I cannot tell if it eventually resolves to an actual file, regular or not\n' "$file"
else
printf 'I cannot tell if "%s" exists, let alone whether it is a regular file or not\n' "$file"
fi
To know for sure that the file doesn't exist, we'd need the stat() system call to return with an error code of ENOENT (ENOTDIR tells us one of the path components is not a directory is another case where we can tell the file doesn't exist by that path). Unfortunately the [ command doesn't let us know that. It will return false whether the error code is ENOENT, EACCESS (permission denied), ENAMETOOLONG or anything else.
The [ -e "$file" ] test can also be done with ls -Ld -- "$file" > /dev/null. In that case, ls will tell you why the stat() failed, though the information can't easily be used programmatically:
$ file=/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
$ if [ ! -e "$file" ]; then echo does not exist; fi
does not exist
$ if ! ls -Ld -- "$file" > /dev/null; then echo stat failed; fi
ls: cannot access '/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root': Permission denied
stat failed
At least ls tells me it's not because the file doesn't exist that it fails. It's because it can't tell whether the file exists or not. The [ command just ignored the problem.
With the zsh shell, you can query the error code with the $ERRNO special variable after the failing [ command, and decode that number using the $errnos special array in the zsh/system module:
zmodload zsh/system
ERRNO=0
if [ ! -f "$file" ]; then
err=$ERRNO
case $errnos[err] in
("") echo exists, not a regular file;;
(ENOENT|ENOTDIR)
if [ -L "$file" ]; then
echo broken link
else
echo does not exist
fi;;
(*) syserror -p "can't tell: " "$err"
esac
fi
(beware the $errnos support was broken with some versions of zsh when built with recent versions of gcc).
There are three distinct ways to do this:
Negate the exit status with bash (no other answer has said this):
if ! [ -e "$file" ]; then
echo "file does not exist"
fi
Or:
! [ -e "$file" ] && echo "file does not exist"
Negate the test inside the test command [ (that is the way most answers before have presented):
if [ ! -e "$file" ]; then
echo "file does not exist"
fi
Or:
[ ! -e "$file" ] && echo "file does not exist"
Act on the result of the test being negative (|| instead of &&):
Only:
[ -e "$file" ] || echo "file does not exist"
This looks silly (IMO), don't use it unless your code has to be portable to the Bourne shell (like the /bin/sh of Solaris 10 or earlier) that lacked the pipeline negation operator (!):
if [ -e "$file" ]; then
:
else
echo "file does not exist"
fi
envfile=.env
if [ ! -f "$envfile" ]
then
echo "$envfile does not exist"
exit 1
fi
To reverse a test, use "!".
That is equivalent to the "not" logical operator in other languages. Try this:
if [ ! -f /tmp/foo.txt ];
then
echo "File not found!"
fi
Or written in a slightly different way:
if [ ! -f /tmp/foo.txt ]
then echo "File not found!"
fi
Or you could use:
if ! [ -f /tmp/foo.txt ]
then echo "File not found!"
fi
Or, presing all together:
if ! [ -f /tmp/foo.txt ]; then echo "File not found!"; fi
Which may be written (using then "and" operator: &&) as:
[ ! -f /tmp/foo.txt ] && echo "File not found!"
Which looks shorter like this:
[ -f /tmp/foo.txt ] || echo "File not found!"
The test thing may count too. It worked for me (based on Bash Shell: Check File Exists or Not):
test -e FILENAME && echo "File exists" || echo "File doesn't exist"
This code also working .
#!/bin/bash
FILE=$1
if [ -f $FILE ]; then
echo "File '$FILE' Exists"
else
echo "The File '$FILE' Does Not Exist"
fi
The simplest way
FILE=$1
[ ! -e "${FILE}" ] && echo "does not exist" || echo "exists"
This shell script also works for finding a file in a directory:
echo "enter file"
read -r a
if [ -s /home/trainee02/"$a" ]
then
echo "yes. file is there."
else
echo "sorry. file is not there."
fi
sometimes it may be handy to use && and || operators.
Like in (if you have command "test"):
test -b $FILE && echo File not there!
or
test -b $FILE || echo File there!
If you want to use test instead of [], then you can use ! to get the negation:
if ! test "$FILE"; then
echo "does not exist"
fi
You can also group multiple commands in the one liner
[ -f "filename" ] || ( echo test1 && echo test2 && echo test3 )
or
[ -f "filename" ] || { echo test1 && echo test2 && echo test3 ;}
If filename doesn't exit, the output will be
test1
test2
test3
Note: ( ... ) runs in a subshell, { ... ;} runs in the same shell.
I am looking for a script that recursively lists all files using export and read link and by not using ls options. I have tried the following code, but it does not fulfill the purpose. Please can you help.
My Code-
#!/bin/bash
for i in `find . -print|cut -d"/" -f2`
do
if [ -d $i ]
then
echo "Hello"
else
cd $i
echo *
fi
done
Here's a simple recursive function which does a directory listing:
list_dir() {
local i # do not use a global variable in our for loop
# ...note that 'local' is not POSIX sh, but even ash
# and dash support it.
[[ -n $1 ]] || set -- . # if no parameter is passed, default to '.'
for i in "$1"/*; do # look at directory contents
if [ -d "$i" ]; then # if our content is a directory...
list_dir "$i" # ...then recurse.
else # if our content is not a directory...
echo "Found a file: $i" # ...then list it.
fi
done
}
Alternately, if by "recurse", you just mean that you want the listing to be recursive, and can accept your code not doing any recursion itself:
#!/bin/bash
# ^-- we use non-POSIX features here, so shebang must not be #!/bin/sh
while IFS='' read -r -d '' filename; do
if [ -f "$filename" ]; then
echo "Found a file: $filename"
fi
done < <(find . -print0)
Doing this safely calls for using -print0, so that names are separated by NULs (the only character which cannot exist in a filename; newlines within names are valid.
I want to create a bash alias to do the following:
Assume I am at the following path:
/dir1/dir2/dir3/...../dirN
I want to go up to dir3 directly without using cd ... I will just write cdd dir3 and it should go directly to /dir1/dir2/dir3. cdd is my alias name.
I wrote the following alias, but it doesn't work:
alias cdd='export newDir=$1; export myPath=`pwd | sed "s/\/$newDir\/.*/\/$newDir/"`; cd $myPath'
Simply it should get the current full path, then remove anything after the new destination directory, then cd to this new path
The problem with my command is that $1 doesn't get my input to the command cdd
This is a slightly simpler function that I think achieves what you're trying to do:
cdd() { cd ${PWD/$1*}$1; }
Explanation:
${PWD/$1*}$1 takes the current working directory and strips off everything after the string passed to it (the target directory), then adds that string back. This is then used as an argument for cd. I didn't bother adding any error handling as cdwill take care of that itself.
Example:
[atticus:pgl]:~/tmp/a/b/c/d/e/f $ cdd b
[atticus:pgl]:~/tmp/a/b $
It's a little ugly, but it works.
Here's a function - which you could place in your shell profile - which does what you want; note that in addition to directory names it also supports levels (e.g., cdd 2 to go up 2 levels in the hierarchy); just using cdd will move up to the parent directory.
Also note that matching is case-INsensitive.
The code is taken from "How can I replace a command line argument with tab completion?", where you'll also find a way to add complementary tab-completion for ancestral directory names.
cdd ()
{
local dir='../';
[[ "$1" == '-h' || "$1" == '--help' ]] && {
echo -e "usage:
$FUNCNAME [n]
$FUNCNAME dirname
Moves up N levels in the path to the current working directory, 1 by default.
If DIRNAME is given, it must be the full name of an ancestral directory (case does not matter).
If there are multiple matches, the one *lowest* in the hierarchy is changed to." && return 0
};
if [[ -n "$1" ]]; then
if [[ $1 =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then
local strpath=$( printf "%${1}s" );
dir=${strpath// /$dir};
else
if [[ $1 =~ ^/ ]]; then
dir=$1;
else
local wdLower=$(echo -n "$PWD" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]');
local tokenLower=$(echo -n "$1" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]');
local newParentDirLower=${wdLower%/$tokenLower/*};
[[ "$newParentDirLower" == "$wdLower" ]] && {
echo "$FUNCNAME: No ancestral directory named '$1' found." 1>&2;
return 1
};
local targetDirPathLength=$(( ${#newParentDirLower} + 1 + ${#tokenLower} ));
dir=${PWD:0:$targetDirPathLength};
fi;
fi;
fi;
pushd "$dir" > /dev/null
}
I agree with mklement0, this should be a function. But a simpler one.
Add this to your .bashrc:
cdd () {
newDir="${PWD%%$1*}$1"
if [ ! -d "$newDir" ]; then
echo "cdd: $1: No such file or directory" >&2
return 1
fi
cd "${newDir}"
}
Note that if $1 (your search string) appears more than once in the path, this function will prefer the first one. Note also that if $1 is a substring of a path, it will not be found. For example:
[ghoti#pc ~]$ mkdir -p /tmp/foo/bar/baz/foo/one
[ghoti#pc ~]$ cd /tmp/foo/bar/baz/foo/one
[ghoti#pc /tmp/foo/bar/baz/foo/one]$ cdd foo
[ghoti#pc /tmp/foo]$ cd -
/tmp/foo/bar/baz/foo/one
[ghoti#pc /tmp/foo/bar/baz/foo/one]$ cdd fo
cdd: fo: No such file or directory
If you'd like to include the functionality of going up 2 levels by running cdd 2, this might work:
cdd () {
newDir="${PWD%%$1*}$1"
if [ "$1" -gt 0 -a "$1" = "${1%%.*}" -a ! -d "$1" ]; then
newDir=""
for _ in $(seq 1 $1); do
newDir="../${newDir}"
done
cd $newDir
return 0
elif [ ! -d "$newDir" ]; then
echo "cdd: $1: No such file or directory" >&2
return 1
fi
cd "${newDir}"
}
The long if statement verifies that you've supplied an integer that is not itself a directory. We build a new $newDir so that you can cd - to get back to your original location if you want.
Is there an easy way to find all files where no part of the path of the file is a symbolic link?
Short:
find myRootDir -type f -print
This would answer the question.
Care to not add a slash at end of specified dir ( not myRootDir/ but myRootDir ).
This won't print other than real files in real path.
No symlinked file nor file in symlinked dir.
But...
If you wanna ensure that a specified dir contain a symlink, there is a litte bash function to could do the job:
isPurePath() {
if [ -d "$1" ];then
while [ ! -L "$1" ] && [ ${#1} -gt 0 ] ;do
set -- "${1%/*}"
if [ "${1%/*}" == "$1" ] ;then
[ ! -L "$1" ] && return
set -- ''
fi
done
fi
false
}
if isPurePath /usr/share/texmf/dvips/xcolor ;then echo yes; else echo no;fi
yes
if isPurePath /usr/share/texmf/doc/pgf ;then echo yes; else echo no;fi
no
So you could Find all files where no part of the path of the file is a symbolic link in running this command:
isPurePath myRootDir && find myRootDir -type f -print
So if something is printed, there are no symlink part !
You can use this script : (copy/paste the whole code in a shell)
cat<<'EOF'>sympath
#!/bin/bash
cur="$1"
while [[ $cur ]]; do
cur="${cur%/*}"
if test -L "$cur"; then
echo >&2 "$cur is a symbolic link"
exit 1
fi
done
EOF
${cur%/*} is a bash parameter expansion
EXAMPLE
chmod +x sympath
./sympath /tmp/foo/bar/base
/tmp/foo/bar is a symbolic link
I don't know any easy way, but here's an answer that fully answers your question, using two methods (that are, in fact, essentially the same):
Using an auxiliary script
Create a file called hasnosymlinkinname (or choose a better name --- I've always sucked at choosing names):
#!/bin/bash
name=$1
if [[ "$1" = /* ]]; then
name="$(pwd)/$1"
else
name=$1
fi
IFS=/ read -r -a namearray <<< "$name"
for ((i=0;i<${#namearray[#]}; ++i)); do
IFS=/ read name <<< "${namearray[*]:0:i+1}"
[[ -L "$name" ]] && exit 1
done
exit 0
Then chmod +x hasnosymlinkinname. Then use with find:
find /path/where/stuff/is -exec ./hasnosymlinkinname {} \; -print
The scripts works like this: using IFS trickery, we decompose the filename into each part of the path (separated by the /) and put each part in an array namearray. Then, we loop through the (cumulative) parts of the array (joined with the / thanks to some IFS trickery) and if this part is a symlink (see the -L test), we exit with a non-success return code (1), otherwise, we exit with a success return code (0).
Then find runs this script to all files in /path/where/stuff/is. If the script exits with a success return code, the name of the file is printed out (but instead of -print you could do whatever else you like).
Using a one(!)-liner (if you have a large screen) to impress your grand-mother (or your dog)
find /path/where/stuff/is -exec bash -c 'if [[ "$0" = /* ]]; then name=$0; else name="$(pwd)/$0"; fi; IFS=/ read -r -a namearray <<< "$name"; for ((i=0;i<${#namearray[#]}; ++i)); do IFS=/ read name <<< "${namearray[*]:0:i+1}"; [[ -L "$name" ]] && exit 1; done; exit 0' {} \; -print
Note
This method is 100% safe regarding spaces or funny symbols that could appear in file names. I don't know how you'll use the output of this command, but please make sure that you'll use a good method that will also be safe regarding spaces and funny symbols that could appear in a file name, i.e., don't parse its output with another script unless you use -print0 or similar smart thing.
This works just fine
if [[ -e img.png ]]
then
echo "exist"
else
echo "doesn't exist"
fi
but what if I know that there might be imgage with name img but I do not know if the file is .jpg , .gif , .jpeg , .tff and so on.
I do not care what is the extension I just want to know if there is a file with name 'img'
How can I do this ?
You can do:
files=$(ls img.* 2> /dev/null | wc -l)
if [ "$files" != "0" ]
then
echo "exist"
else
echo "doesn't exist"
fi
You can use the following scripts
files=`ls img.* 2>/dev/null`
if [ "$files" -a ${#files[#]} ]; then
echo "exist"
else
echo "doesn't exist"
fi
In this snippet, you use ls img.* to list all the files in current working directory whose name match the pattern img.*.
The result is stored into an array named files.
Then check size of the array to determine whether required files exist.
See this for how to get length of the array.
Something like this should do the job:
if [[ $(ls img.*) ]]; then
echo "file exist";
else
echo "file does not exist";
fi
I recommend to have a look at bash's pattern matching:
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/sect_04_03.html
Without any external command:
$ for i in img.*
> do
> [ -f $i ] && echo exist || echo not exist
> break
> done
Check if any file is present. If present print exist , else not exist, and break immediately. The "-f" check is needed because if no files are present, still the loop runs once with i as "img.*" itself.
shopt -s nullglob
files=( img.* )
if (( ${#files[#]} == 0 )); then
echo "there are no 'img' files"
fi
If you don't use nullglob then, if there are no such files, the array will have 1 element, the literal string "img.*".