Run script against a directory or a file - bash

I have a working script that parses a text file and creates a new file from the output. How do I run this script against a single file OR a directory of files instead? Below is a general overview of the working script. Thank you for the help.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
if [ -f "$1" ]; then
*Run Some Commands against file* "$1" >> NewFile.txt
echo "Complete. Check NewFile.txt"
else
echo "Expected a file at $1, but it doesn't exist." >&2
fi

You could check if the passed argument is a directory and if so, write a loop to process the files in that directory:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
if (($# = 0)); then
echo "No arguments given" >&2
exit 2
fi
arg=$1
if [ -f "$arg" ]; then
*Run Some Commands against file* "$1" >> NewFile.txt
echo "Complete. Check NewFile.txt"
elif [ -d "$arg" ]; then
shopt -s nullglob
for file in "$arg"/*; do
# run command against "$file"
done
else
echo "Expected a file or directory as $1, but it doesn't exist." >&2
fi

An easier solution (which also recurses) is making it X-dimensional:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
if [ -d $1 ]; then
for i in $1/*; do
# start another instance of this script
$0 $1/$i
done
fi
if [ -f "$1" ]; then
*Run Some Commands against file* "$1" >> NewFile.txt
echo "Complete. Check NewFile.txt"
else
echo "Expected a file at $1, but it doesn't exist." >&2
fi

Related

how can i check if file exists in bash script? [duplicate]

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.

How to see file exit in bash [duplicate]

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.

sed command in Solaris server

I have many javascript files in my solaris server which have some debug, print and trace statements which I want to comment. There are hundreds of file like this.
I have found a script to do this but the problem is the script is removing the urhk_b2k_printRepos statement instead of commenting it. The script is as below:
if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
echo "usage: prdel <script file name> <directory in which scripts are present>"
exit 1
fi
file=$1
dir=$2
if [ ! -s ${file} ]
then
echo "script file ${file} either does not exist or is empty (zero bytes)"
echo "Exiting..."
exit 1
fi
if [ ! -d ${dir} ]
then
echo "Invalid directory ${dir} entered"
echo "Exiting..."
exit 1
fi
cordir="./corrected"
prlogdir="./prlog"
if [ -d ${cordir} ]
then
echo "The corrected directory exist in the path, Please remove and run the tool again"
echo "Exiting..."
exit 1
else
mkdir ${cordir}
fi
if [ -d ${prlogdir} ]
then
echo "The prlog directory exist in the path, Please remove and run the tool again"
echo "Exiting..."
exit 1
else
mkdir ${prlogdir}
fi
errFile="$prlogdir/scr_err.rpt"
sucFile="$prlogdir/scr_suc.rpt"
Lines=`wc -l $file`
cntr=1
while [ $cntr -le $Lines ]
do
src=`head -$cntr $file|tail -1`
echo "$cntr. Processing $src...."
srcPath="${dir}/${src}"
if [ ! -s ${srcPath} ]
then
echo "Script file ${src} does not exist in the path given" >> ${errFile}
else
cp $srcPath $cordir/$src.tmp
srctemp="$cordir/$src.tmp"
srccor="$cordir/$src.corrected"
printcnt=`grep -ci "^[ ]*print" $srctemp`
if [ $printcnt -ne 0 ]
then
cat $srctemp|sed 's/^[ ]*[ ]*print[ ]*(/#print(/'|sed 's/^[ ]*[ ]*PRINT[ ]*(/#PRINT(/' > $srccor
mv $srccor $srctemp
fi
prreposcnt=`grep -ci "printrepos" $srctemp`
if [ $prreposcnt -ne 0 ]
then
cat $srctemp|sed 's/^.*urhk_b2k_printRepos.*/#Printrepos statement removed/'|sed 's/^.*urhk_B2k_PrintRepos.*/#Printrepos statement removed/'|sed 's/^.*urhk_B2k_printRepos.*/#Printrepos statement removed/'|sed 's/^.*urhk_b2k_PrintRepos.*/#Printrepos statement removed/' > $srccor
else
cp $srctemp $srccor
fi
echo "Script file $src correction is done" >> ${sucFile}
rm $srctemp
diff $srcPath $srccor >> $prlogdir/$src.diff.rpt
fi
cntr=`expr $cntr + 1`
done
echo "done"
I am completely new to shell scripting. Can anyone help me to modify this script to comment "urhk_b2k_printRepos" lines and also comment "TRACE ON" lines.

Make Bash script exit and print error message if users invoke the script incorrectly

Script needed was
#!/bin/bash
# Check if there are two arguments
if [ $# -eq 2 ]; then
# Check if the input file actually exists.
if ! [[ -f "$1" ]]; then
echo "The input file $1 does not exist."
exit 1
fi
else
echo "Usage: $0 [inputfile] [outputfile]"
exit 1
fi
# Run the command on the input file
grep -P "^[\s]*[0-9A-Za-z-]+.?[\s]*$" "$1" > "$2"
Edit, the script has changed to
grep -P "^[\s]*[0-9A-Za-z-]+.?[\s]*$" $*
if [ ! -f "$1" ]; then
echo 'Usage: '
echo
echo './Scriptname inputfile > outputfile'
exit 0
fi
invoking the script with no parameters gives no erros and sits blank
Usage:
./Scriptname inputfile > outputfile
I have bit of code
grep -P "^[\s]*[0-9A-Za-z-]+.?[\s]*$" $*
This code pulls lines that have a single word on them and pumps the output to a new file, so for example
This is a multi word line
this
the above line is not
now
once again wrong
The output would be
This
now
The code works, users invoke the code using ./scriptname file > newfile
However, I am trying to expand the code to give users an error message if they invoke the script incorrectly.
For the error messange, I'm thinking of echoing something back like scriptname file_to_process > output_file.
I did try
if [incorrectly invoted unsure what to type]
echo $usage
exit 1
Usage="usage [inputfile] [>] [outputfile]
However I have had little luck. The code runs but does nothing if I invoke with just the script name. Also, if I invoke the script with just the scriptname and the input file, it will output the results instead of exiting with the error message.
Other ones I have tried are
if [ ! -n $1 ]; then
echo 'Usage: '
echo
echo './Scriptname inputfile > outputfile'
exit 0
fi
Given replies I have received so far, my code now is
#!/bin/bash
grep -P "^[\s]*[0-9A-Za-z-]+.?[\s]*$" $*
if [ ! -f "$1" ]; then
echo 'Usage: '
echo
echo './Scriptname inputfile > outputfile'
exit 0
fi
When invoking the script without an input file the script does nothing and has to be aborted with ctrl+c, still trying to get the echo of the invoke message.
When you are invoking the script like ./scriptname file > newfile, the shell interprets file as the only argument to ./scriptname. This is because > is the standard output redirection operator.
I would like to propose 2 possible alternatives:
Alternative 1:
Maybe you're can try passing it as 1 argument like this?
./scriptname 'file > newfile'
In that case one way to check the format would be
#!/bin/bash
# Check if the format is correct
if [[ $1 =~ (.+)' > '(.+) ]]; then
# Check if the input file actually exists.
if ! [[ -f "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}" ]]; then
echo "The input file ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} does not exist!"
exit 1
fi
else
echo "Usage: $0 \"[inputfile] [>] [outputfile]\""
exit 1
fi
# Redirect standard output to the output file
exec > "${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
# Run the command on the input file
grep -P "^[\s]*[0-9A-Za-z-]+.?[\s]*$" "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
Note: If you are checking whether the arguments are valid or not, it's generally better to run commands only after the checking is done.
Alternative 2:
Passing 2 arguments like
./scriptname file newfile
The script looks like this
#!/bin/bash
# Check if there are two arguments
if [ $# -eq 2 ]; then
# Check if the input file actually exists.
if ! [[ -f "$1" ]]; then
echo "The input file $1 does not exist."
exit 1
fi
else
echo "Usage: $0 [inputfile] [outputfile]"
exit 1
fi
# Run the command on the input file
grep -P "^[\s]*[0-9A-Za-z-]+.?[\s]*$" "$1" > "$2"
I'd use parameter expansion for this:
inputfile=${1:?Usage: $(basename $0) inputfile > outputfile}
If the script is called without arguments (i.e. $1 is unset) the ${var:?error message} expansion causes the shell to display an error with the given message and exit. Otherwise the first argument is assigned to $inputfile.
Try to add double quotes around $1 and use -f to check for exists and is normal file:
if [ ! -f "$1" ]; then
echo 'Usage: '
echo
echo './Scriptname inputfile > outputfile'
exit 0
fi
Also you can check for the param count with $# and cat an usage message:
if [ ! $# -eq 1 ]; then
cat << EOF
Usage:
$0 'input_file' > output_file
EOF
exit 1
fi

Check if passed argument is file or directory in Bash

I'm trying to write an extremely simple script in Ubuntu which would allow me to pass it either a filename or a directory, and be able to do something specific when it's a file, and something else when it's a directory. The problem I'm having is when the directory name, or probably files too, has spaces or other escapable characters are in the name.
Here's my basic code down below, and a couple tests.
#!/bin/bash
PASSED=$1
if [ -d "${PASSED}" ] ; then
echo "$PASSED is a directory";
else
if [ -f "${PASSED}" ]; then
echo "${PASSED} is a file";
else
echo "${PASSED} is not valid";
exit 1
fi
fi
And here's the output:
andy#server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy/
/home/andy/ is a directory
andy#server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy/blah.txt
/home/andy/blah.txt is a file
andy#server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy/blah\ with\ a\ space.txt
/home/andy/blah with a space.txt is not valid
andy#server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy\ with\ a\ space/
/home/andy with a space/ is not valid
All of those paths are valid, and exist.
That should work. I am not sure why it's failing. You're quoting your variables properly. What happens if you use this script with double [[ ]]?
if [[ -d $PASSED ]]; then
echo "$PASSED is a directory"
elif [[ -f $PASSED ]]; then
echo "$PASSED is a file"
else
echo "$PASSED is not valid"
exit 1
fi
Double square brackets is a bash extension to [ ]. It doesn't require variables to be quoted, not even if they contain spaces.
Also worth trying: -e to test if a path exists without testing what type of file it is.
At least write the code without the bushy tree:
#!/bin/bash
PASSED=$1
if [ -d "${PASSED}" ]
then echo "${PASSED} is a directory";
elif [ -f "${PASSED}" ]
then echo "${PASSED} is a file";
else echo "${PASSED} is not valid";
exit 1
fi
When I put that into a file "xx.sh" and create a file "xx sh", and run it, I get:
$ cp /dev/null "xx sh"
$ for file in . xx*; do sh "$file"; done
. is a directory
xx sh is a file
xx.sh is a file
$
Given that you are having problems, you should debug the script by adding:
ls -ld "${PASSED}"
This will show you what ls thinks about the names you pass the script.
Using -f and -d switches on /bin/test:
F_NAME="${1}"
if test -f "${F_NAME}"
then
echo "${F_NAME} is a file"
elif test -d "${F_NAME}"
then
echo "${F_NAME} is a directory"
else
echo "${F_NAME} is not valid"
fi
Using the "file" command may be useful for this:
#!/bin/bash
check_file(){
if [ -z "${1}" ] ;then
echo "Please input something"
return;
fi
f="${1}"
result="$(file $f)"
if [[ $result == *"cannot open"* ]] ;then
echo "NO FILE FOUND ($result) ";
elif [[ $result == *"directory"* ]] ;then
echo "DIRECTORY FOUND ($result) ";
else
echo "FILE FOUND ($result) ";
fi
}
check_file "${1}"
Output examples :
$ ./f.bash login
DIRECTORY FOUND (login: directory)
$ ./f.bash ldasdas
NO FILE FOUND (ldasdas: cannot open `ldasdas' (No such file or directory))
$ ./f.bash evil.php
FILE FOUND (evil.php: PHP script, ASCII text)
FYI: the answers above work but you can use -s to help in weird situations by checking for a valid file first:
#!/bin/bash
check_file(){
local file="${1}"
[[ -s "${file}" ]] || { echo "is not valid"; return; }
[[ -d "${file}" ]] && { echo "is a directory"; return; }
[[ -f "${file}" ]] && { echo "is a file"; return; }
}
check_file ${1}
Using stat
function delete_dir () {
type="$(stat --printf=%F "$1")"
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
echo "$1 directory does not exist. Nothing to delete."
elif [ "$type" == "regular file" ]; then
echo "$1 is a file, not a directory."
exit 1
elif [ "$type" == "directory" ]; then
echo "Deleting $1 directory."
rm -r "$1"
fi
}
function delete_file () {
type="$(stat --printf=%F "$1")"
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
echo "$1 file does not exist. Nothing to delete."
elif [ "$type" == "directory" ]; then
echo "$1 is a regular file, not a directory."
exit 1
elif [ "$type" == "regular file" ]; then
echo "Deleting $1 regular file."
rm "$1"
fi
}
https://linux.die.net/man/2/stat
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_file_types
A more elegant solution
echo "Enter the file name"
read x
if [ -f $x ]
then
echo "This is a regular file"
else
echo "This is a directory"
fi
Answer based on the title:
Check if passed argument is file or directory in Bash
This works also if the provided argument has a trailing slash .e.g. dirname/
die() { echo $* 1>&2; exit 1; }
# This is to remove the the slash at the end: dirName/ -> dirName
fileOrDir=$(basename "$1")
( [ -d "$fileOrDir" ] || [ -f "$fileOrDir" ] ) && die "file or directory $fileOrDir already exists"
Testing:
mkdir mydir
touch myfile
command dirName
# file or directory mydir already exists
command dirName/
# file or directory mydir already exists
command filename
# file or directory myfile already exists
#!/bin/bash
echo "Please Enter a file name :"
read filename
if test -f $filename
then
echo "this is a file"
else
echo "this is not a file"
fi
One liner
touch bob; test -d bob && echo 'dir' || (test -f bob && echo 'file')
result is true (0)(dir) or true (0)(file) or false (1)(neither)
This should work:
#!/bin/bash
echo "Enter your Path:"
read a
if [[ -d $a ]]; then
echo "$a is a Dir"
elif [[ -f $a ]]; then
echo "$a is the File"
else
echo "Invalid path"
fi

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