Shell file exists test

But there are a few treacherous rapids on this river: Everything is a file. Scripts have real power only if they solve general tasks To be general, we use variables We often use -f force in scripts to avoid manual intervention And also love -r recursive to make sure we create, copy and destroy in a timely fashion.

Consider the following scenario: We have the file we want to delete: filesexists. Does the files exist? Just issue rm filename and it will be gone after that, whether it was there or not. T G T G 2 2 silver badges 7 7 bronze badges. This is actually quite a valid answer for the rm command.

For other commands I suggest rather testing with -e. Except that it's not what the question asks. It is very much what the question asks, if you read the whole question including the " Most systems now will not prompt to confirm to delete a file.

You can use timeout with [ as well, and test also freezes if NFS hangs. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name.

Email Required, but never shown. If you get no output then the directory is empty or else not empty. Similarly there are many more attributes which you can use with shell scripts to check for different file types, such as symbolic links, file permissions etc. Attributes What it does? In this tutorial I shared brief examples of test operators to check for files and directories.

You can use any attribute from the table I have shared to enhance your script execution with proper tests. Lastly I hope the steps from the article to check if file exists or not on Linux was helpful.

So, let me know your suggestions and feedback using the comment section. If my articles on GoLinuxCloud has helped you, kindly consider buying me a coffee as a token of appreciation.

For any other feedbacks or questions you can either use the comments section or contact me form. Most of this stuff has been really helpful. Read Full Post.

Privacy Overview This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Strictly Necessary Cookies Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. Enable or Disable Cookies. Otherwise, the result would be False , as you can see from the screenshot below.

This example is a typical use-case to create files at a specified location. If the file exists, the script shows a message and does not attempt to make the file anymore. Copy the code below and save it in a file called Create-NewFile. After saving the script, run it in PowerShell to test. The screenshot below shows the two different outputs. The first is when running the script while the file does not exist.

The second is after creating the file, and it already exists. In comparison, the Get-ChildItem cmdlet is to get the items and child items in one or more specified locations. The functionality of these two cmdlets is not explicitly to check if files exist. Take the commands below as an example. Each of the commands above returns an error. As you can see from the example below, the error message for both commands is the same.

In this example, the script uses the Get-Item and Test-Path cmdlets. The logic of this script is to do the following:. After saving the script, run it in PowerShell and verify the results.

The last method to learn in this article is the System.