Related
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.
My script is a mimic of the rm command, long story short. Can anyone point out the errors/unnecessary lines I have in my remove script that causes my output to produce excessive/irrelevant lines? The code works as intended but it produces all these unnecessary/excessive/duplicate lines. Output below is what looks like when I try to remove 2 files in the same line and do some other simple commands. Thank you in advance. I appreciate any help.
input: sh remove file2 file4
output:
Executed
Executed
cannot remove file4: no such file or directory
stat: cannot stat 'file4': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat 'file4': No such file or directory
Executed
mv: cannot stat 'file4': No such file or directory
File moved to recycle bin
#/bin/bash
function directory(){
if [ ! -d ~/deleted ]
then
mkdir ~/deleted
fi
if [ ! -f ~/.restore.info ]
then
touch ~/.restore.info
fi
}
function movefile(){
mv $1 ~/deleted/$1
echo "file moved to recycle bin"
}
function error_conditions(){
#prints error messages and checks if file is in project directory
if [ ! -f ~/project ]
then
echo "cannot remove $filename: no such file or directory"
elif [ -d ~/project ]
then
echo "cannot remove $filename: is a directory"
else
echo "missing operand"
fi
}
function delete_file(){
#gets inode for filename
inode=$(stat -c%i $filename)
filename=$1
#pwd=$(readlink -e$filename)
if $interactive
then
if [ $verbose = true ]; then
read -p "Are you sure you want to delete $filename?" i_input
if [ $i_input == "y" ] || [ $i_input == "Y" ]
then
mv $filename ~/delete/${filename}_inode
echo ${filename}_$inode:$pwd>>~/.restore.info
echo "$filename has been deleted"
else
echo "Nothing has been deleted"
fi
else
read -p "Are you sure you want to delete $filename?" i_input
if [ $i_input == "y" ] || [ $i_input == "Y" ];
then
mv $filename ~/deleted/${filename}_$inode
echo ${filename}_$inode:$pwd>>~/.restore.info
else
echo Aborted
fi
fi
elif $verbose
then
mv $filename ~/deleted/${filename}_inode
echo ${filename}_$inode:$inode:pwd>>~/.restore.info
echo "$filename has been deleted."
else
mv $filename ~/deleted/${filename}_$inode
echo ${filename}_$inode:$pwd>>~/.restore.info
echo Executed
fi
}
interactive=false
verbose=false
while getopts iv option
do
case $option in
i) interactive=true;;
v) verbose=true;;
esac
done
shift $[OPTIND-1]
for i in $*
do
filename=$i
baseline=$(basename $i)
if [ "$i" == "" ];
then
echo "No filename provided"
elif [ -d $filename ];
then
if [ ! $recursive = true ];
then
echo "Directory name provided, please provide a file"
fi
elif [ ! -f $filename ];
then
echo "File does not exist"
elif [ "$basefule" == "safe_rm" ]
then
echo "Attempting to delete safe_rm"
else
delete_file $filename
fi
done
#################################M A I N###############################
directory
error_conditions $*
delete_file $*
movefile $*
Please indent properly.
for i in $* should be for i in "$#" or simply for i.
In general, variables should be quoted
(e.g., "$1", "$i",
"$filename",
"$verbose", etc.)
$[expression] is obsolete.
Use $((expression)).
Your main loop calls
delete_file $filename
(line 100).
Your delete_file function sets
filename=$1
(line 35),
which is somewhat redundant and therefore confusing.
You set baseline but never use it.
You test (i.e., reference) $basefule without ever setting it.
Are these meant to be the same variable?
The code says
if [ ! -f ~/project ]
then
echo "cannot remove $filename: no such file or directory"
︙
This is a very misleading message.
You have a big comment that says “M A I N”,
but the “main” code begins about 33 lines earlier.
The code doesfor i in $*
do
filename=$i # This is an example of terrible indenting.
︙
delete_file $filename
︙
donebut then, five lines later,delete_file $*
so you’re processing the files twice.
So, even if delete_file succeeds the first time you call it,
the file will be gone when you call it a second time.
And, if you want to call a function (e.g., delete_file)
with all the arguments to the script,
you should use "$#" rather than $*.
And, if you’re going to call delete_file with a list of filenames,
then delete_file needs to iterate (loop) over those arguments.
Your delete_file function only looks at $1.
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'm using the find command in my bash script like so
for x in `find ${1} .....`;
do
...
done
However, how do I handle the case where the input to my script is a file/directory that does not exist? (ie I want to print a message out when that happens)
I've tried to use -d and -f, but the case I am having trouble with is when ${1} is "." or ".."
When the input is something that doesn't exist it does not enter my for loop.
Thanks!
Bash gives you this out of the box:
if [ ! -f ${1} ];
then
echo "File/Directory does not exist!"
else
# execute your find...
fi
Bash scripting is a bit weird. Practice before implementation. But this site seems to break it down well.
If the file exists, this works:
if [ -e "${1}" ]
then
echo "${1} file exists."
fi
If the file does not exist, this works. Note the '!' to denote 'not':
if [ ! -e "${1}" ]
then
echo "${1} file doesn't exist."
fi
assign the find to a variable and test against the variable.
files=`find ${1} .....`
if [[ "$files" != “file or directory does not exist” ]]; then
...
fi
You can try something like this:
y=`find . -name "${1}"`
if [ "$y" != "" ]; then
for x in $y; do
echo "found $x"
done
else
echo "No files/directories found!"
fi
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.