Comments on: Determine if file exists in a Bourne/bash shell script

By: NeoVG

NeoVG — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:34:33 +0000

@Shabeer: You have to escape the whitespaces. So try this:

bash-3.00$ ls file \name

@Others: -f fails, if the target is a symbolic link, as a link is NO regular file, although you can read it like one.

By: Teen

Teen — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:29:00 +0000

idiot

By: it doesn't matter

it doesn't matter — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Swearing in this way is just a demonstration of childish bad behavior. If you don’t want to help or you don’t have anything constructive to say then please don’t say it.
If you disagree with someone then explain your opinion respectfully, you may both be right or either of you may be wrong. But either way there is no need for bad language is there?

By: Jan Stammes

Jan Stammes — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:14:00 +0000

just where I was looking for

By: Shabeer

Shabeer — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:28:00 +0000

does the -f or -s option work if the filename has a white space. below is the file and when I use the file name in if condition it throws an error. I tried with double quotes, single quotes etc.. if condition throws an error

bash-3.00$ ls file name
file name
bash-3.00$

By: Jscrobinson

Jscrobinson — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:03:00 +0000

I think a lot of you should grow up a little bit and try and do something about your bad language.

By: sims

sims — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:24:00 +0000

Well, at least they are acting like idiots. WTF does “AND” mean to you?

By: Drain

Drain — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:44:00 +0000

You are rude.

By: Blake Galbreath

Blake Galbreath — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 02:47:00 +0000

Um…

“True if filename exists AND is a regular file”

So, let me break it down for you idiots.

-f tests for an existing REGULAR file. If the file exists, but is NOT regular, then -f returns FALSE.

-e tests for an existing file, regardless if its regular or not. If the file is there (regular or not) it returns TRUE.

Hope I helped

;)

By: Incognito

Incognito — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:42:00 +0000

-f didn’t work for me either.
Maybe different Version of bash or whatever.
-e worked well.