Sentry Answers>Bash>

Determine whether a file exists or not in Bash

Determine whether a file exists or not in Bash

David Y.

—

The ProblemJump To Solution

How can I determine whether a file exists in Bash? Conversely, how can I test that it does not exist?

The Solution

We can check whether a file exists using the test command-line utility:

Click to Copy
if test -f /path/to/file; then
  echo "File exists."
fi

To check whether a file does not exist, we can negate the condition with the NOT logical operator, !:

Click to Copy
if ! test -f /path/to/file; then
  echo "File does not exist."
fi

Because the test command is used frequently in Bash expressions, we can write it as [] rather than typing out test:

Click to Copy
if ! [ -f /path/to/file ]; then
  echo "File does not exist."
fi

The -f flag tests whether the provided filename exists and is a regular file. To test for directories instead, we can use the -d flag. To test for both files and directories, we can use the -e flag.

More information about test can be found on its manual page, accessible by typing man test into the terminal.

  • ResourcesWhat is Distributed Tracing
  • Syntax.fm logo
    Listen to the Syntax Podcast

    Tasty Treats for Web Developers brought to you by Sentry. Web development tips and tricks hosted by Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski

    Listen to Syntax

Loved by over 4 million developers and more than 90,000 organizations worldwide, Sentry provides code-level observability to many of the world’s best-known companies like Disney, Peloton, Cloudflare, Eventbrite, Slack, Supercell, and Rockstar Games. Each month we process billions of exceptions from the most popular products on the internet.

learn more about sentryjoin our discord
© 2024 • Sentry is a registered Trademark
of Functional Software, Inc.