Bash check if file Exists

Most of the time, we may find a situation where we may need to perform an action that will check whether a file exists or not.

In Bash, we can use a 'test command' to check whether a file exists and determine the type of a file.

Following are the syntaxes of the test command, and we can use any of these commands:

test expression
[ expression ]
[[ expression ]]

We are required to use a single bracket '[' command to make our script portable for all POSIX shells. The upgraded version of the test command contains double brackets '[[' which is supported on most of the modern systems using Bash, Zsh, and Ksh as a default shell.

Check If File Exists

While checking if a file exists, the most commonly used file operators are -e and -f. The '-e' option is used to check whether a file exists regardless of the type, while the '-f' option is used to return true value only if the file is a regular file (not a directory or a device).

The most common option to check if the file exists or not is to use the test command with the 'if conditional statement'.

Following are the examples to check whether the 'read_file.txt' file exists:

Method 1

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
if test -f "$File"; then
echo "$File exist "
fi

Method 2

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
if [ -f "$File" ]; then
echo "$File exist "
fi

Method 3

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
if [[ -f "$File" ]]; then
echo "$File exist "
fi

Output

Output for all the three methods will be as below because we have a file (read_file.txt) present in the directory:

read_file.txt exist

If we want to perform an action which will provide a result based on whether the file exists or not, we can use the if/then construct in the following way:

Example

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
if [ -f "$File" ]; then
echo "$File exist"
else
echo "$File does not exist"
fi

Output

read_file.txt exist

We can also use the test command without the if statement. We can use any of the following methods:

Method 1

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
test -f read_file.txt && echo "$File exist"

Method 2

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
[ -f read_file.txt ] && echo "$File exist"

Method 3

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
[[ -f read_file.txt ]] && echo "$File exist"

Output

Output for all the three methods will be as below because we have a file (read_file.txt) present in the directory:

read_file.txt exist

If there are several commands to be run after the && operator, then enclose the commands in curly brackets separated by semicolon(;) or AND (&&), i.e.:

Example

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt
[ -f read_file.txt ] && { echo "$File exist"; echo "Task Completed"; }

Unlike &&, the statement after the || operator is executed only if the exit status of the test command is 'false'.

Example

#!/bin/bash

File=read_file.txt

[ -f read_file.txt ] && echo "$File exist" || echo "$File does not exist"

Output

read_file.txt exist

These are the commonly used methods in Bash to check whether the file exists or not.

Check If Directory Exists

The operator '-d' allows us to test whether a file is a directory or not.

Following are the methods to check whether the 'Javatpoint' directory exists:

Method 1

#!/bin/bash

File=Javatpoint
if [ -d "$File" ]; then
echo "$File is a directory"
fi

Method 2

#!/bin/bash

File=Javatpoint
[ -d "$File" ] && echo "$File is a directory"

Note: We can also use double brackets '[[' instead of a single bracket '['.

Output

Output for both the above methods will be as below as we have a directory (named Javatpoint) present in the specified location:

Javatpoint is a directory

Check IF File does not Exist

The test expression can be negated by using the exclamation mark (! -logical NOT operator). Check out the following example:

Example

#!/bin/bash

File=missing_read_file.txt
if [ ! -f "$File" ]; then
echo "$File does not exist"
fi

Above script can also be written as below:

#!/bin/bash

File=missing_read_file.txt
[ ! -f "$File" ] && echo "$File unavailable"

Output

missing_read_file.txt unavailable

File Test Operators

The test commands include the following File Operators which allow us to test for particular types of files:

-b File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a block special file.
-c File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a special character file.
-d File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a directory.
-e File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a file, regardless of type (node, directory, socket, etc.).
-f File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a regular file (not a directory or device).
-G File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists and contains the same group as the user is running the command.
-h File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a symbolic link.
-g File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists and contains set-group-id (sgid) flag set.
-k File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists and contains a sticky bit flag set.
-L File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a symbolic link.
-O File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists and is owned by the user who is running the command.
-p File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a pipe.
-r File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a readable file.
-S File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a socket.
-s File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists and has nonzero size.
-u File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists, and set-user-id (suid) flag is set.
-w File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as a writable file.
-x File Returns	'True' if the FILE exists as an executable file.