How do I tell if a regular file does not exist in Bash

Question

I ve used the following script to see if a file exists      bin bash  FILE  1      if   -f  FILE    then    echo  File  FILE exists   else    echo  File  FILE does not exist   fi   What s the correct syntax to use if I only want to check if the file does not exist      bin bash  FILE  1      if    FILE does not exist    then    echo  File  FILE does not exist   fi

User · Answer

You can do this        -f   FILE      amp  amp  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

User · Answer

I prefer to do the following one-liner  in POSIX shell compatible format       -f    DIR  FILE       echo   FILE NOT FOUND       -f    DIR  FILE     amp  amp  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

User · Answer

You can negate an expression with          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

User · Answer

The simplest way   FILE  1     -e    FILE      amp  amp  echo  does not exist     echo  exists

User · Answer

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  gt  0   Example script      bin bash FILE  1  if   -f   FILE     then    echo  File  FILE exists  else    echo  File  FILE does not exist  fi

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

The test thing may count too  It worked for me  based on Bash Shell  Check File Exists or Not    test -e FILENAME  amp  amp  echo  File exists     echo  File doesn t exist

User · Answer

The test command    here  has a  not  logical operator which is the exclamation point  similar to many other languages   Try this   if     -f  tmp foo txt    then     echo  File not found   fi

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

-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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

sometimes it may be handy to use  amp  amp  and    operators   Like in  if you have command  test     test -b  FILE  amp  amp  echo File not there    or   test -b  FILE    echo File there

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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     amp  amp  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     amp  amp  echo  file does not exist   Act on the result of the test being negative     instead of  amp  amp     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

User · Answer

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   amp  amp   as       -f  tmp foo txt    amp  amp  echo  File not found     Which looks shorter like this     -f  tmp foo txt      echo  File not found

User · Answer

envfile  env  if     -f   envfile    then     echo   envfile does not exist      exit 1 fi

User · Answer

You can also group multiple commands in the one liner    -f  filename         echo test1  amp  amp  echo test2  amp  amp  echo test3    or    -f  filename         echo test1  amp  amp  echo test2  amp  amp  echo test3     If filename doesn t exit  the output will be  test1 test2 test3   Note          runs in a subshell           runs in the same shell  The curly bracket notation works in bash only

User · Answer

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   gt   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   gt   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

[bash] How do I tell if a regular file does not exist in Bash?

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