How can I check if a directory exists in a Bash shell script?
BashShellUnixPosixBash Problem Overview
What command can be used to check if a directory exists or not, within a Bash shell script?
Bash Solutions
Solution 1 - Bash
To check if a directory exists in a shell script, you can use the following:
if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ]; then
# Control will enter here if $DIRECTORY exists.
fi
Or to check if a directory doesn't exist:
if [ ! -d "$DIRECTORY" ]; then
# Control will enter here if $DIRECTORY doesn't exist.
fi
However, as Jon Ericson points out, subsequent commands may not work as intended if you do not take into account that a symbolic link to a directory will also pass this check. E.g. running this:
ln -s "$ACTUAL_DIR" "$SYMLINK"
if [ -d "$SYMLINK" ]; then
rmdir "$SYMLINK"
fi
Will produce the error message:
rmdir: failed to remove `symlink': Not a directory
So symbolic links may have to be treated differently, if subsequent commands expect directories:
if [ -d "$LINK_OR_DIR" ]; then
if [ -L "$LINK_OR_DIR" ]; then
# It is a symlink!
# Symbolic link specific commands go here.
rm "$LINK_OR_DIR"
else
# It's a directory!
# Directory command goes here.
rmdir "$LINK_OR_DIR"
fi
fi
Take particular note of the double-quotes used to wrap the variables. The reason for this is explained by 8jean in another answer.
If the variables contain spaces or other unusual characters it will probably cause the script to fail.
Solution 2 - Bash
Remember to always wrap variables in double quotes when referencing them in a Bash script. Kids these days grow up with the idea that they can have spaces and lots of other funny characters in their directory names. (Spaces! Back in my days, we didn't have no fancy spaces! ;))
One day, one of those kids will run your script with $DIRECTORY
set to "My M0viez"
and your script will blow up. You don't want that. So use this.
if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ]; then
# Will enter here if $DIRECTORY exists, even if it contains spaces
fi
Solution 3 - Bash
Note the -d test can produce some surprising results:
$ ln -s tmp/ t
$ if [ -d t ]; then rmdir t; fi
rmdir: directory "t": Path component not a directory
File under: "When is a directory not a directory?" The answer: "When it's a symlink to a directory." A slightly more thorough test:
if [ -d t ]; then
if [ -L t ]; then
rm t
else
rmdir t
fi
fi
You can find more information in the Bash manual on Bash conditional expressions and the [
builtin command and the [[
compound commmand.
Solution 4 - Bash
I find the double-bracket version of test
makes writing logic tests more natural:
if [[ -d "${DIRECTORY}" && ! -L "${DIRECTORY}" ]] ; then
echo "It's a bona-fide directory"
fi
Solution 5 - Bash
Shorter form:
# if $DIR is a directory, then print yes
[ -d "$DIR" ] && echo "Yes"
Solution 6 - Bash
-
A simple script to test if a directory or file is present or not:
if [ -d /home/ram/dir ] # For file "if [ -f /home/rama/file ]" then echo "dir present" else echo "dir not present" fi
-
A simple script to check whether the directory is present or not:
mkdir tempdir # If you want to check file use touch instead of mkdir ret=$? if [ "$ret" == "0" ] then echo "dir present" else echo "dir not present" fi
The above scripts will check if the directory is present or not
$?
if the last command is a success it returns "0", else a non-zero value. Supposetempdir
is already present. Thenmkdir tempdir
will give an error like below:> mkdir: cannot create directory ‘tempdir’: File exists
Solution 7 - Bash
To check if a directory exists you can use a simple if
structure like this:
if [ -d directory/path to a directory ] ; then
# Things to do
else #if needed #also: elif [new condition]
# Things to do
fi
You can also do it in the negative:
if [ ! -d directory/path to a directory ] ; then
# Things to do when not an existing directory
Note: Be careful. Leave empty spaces on either side of both opening and closing braces.
With the same syntax you can use:
-e: any kind of archive
-f: file
-h: symbolic link
-r: readable file
-w: writable file
-x: executable file
-s: file size greater than zero
Solution 8 - Bash
You can use test -d
(see man test
).
> -d file
True if file exists and is a directory.
For example:
test -d "/etc" && echo Exists || echo Does not exist
Note: The test
command is same as conditional expression [
(see: man [
), so it's portable across shell scripts.
> [
- This is a synonym for the test
builtin, but the last argument must, be a literal ]
, to match the opening [
.
For possible options or further help, check:
help [
help test
man test
orman [
Solution 9 - Bash
Or for something completely useless:
[ -d . ] || echo "No"
Solution 10 - Bash
Here's a very pragmatic idiom:
(cd $dir) || return # Is this a directory,
# and do we have access?
I typically wrap it in a function:
can_use_as_dir() {
(cd ${1:?pathname expected}) || return
}
Or:
assert_dir_access() {
(cd ${1:?pathname expected}) || exit
}
The nice thing about this approach is that I do not have to think of a good error message.
cd
will give me a standard one line message to standard error already. It will also give more information than I will be able to provide. By performing the cd
inside a subshell ( ... )
, the command does not affect the current directory of the caller. If the directory exists, this subshell and the function are just a no-op.
Next is the argument that we pass to cd
: ${1:?pathname expected}
. This is a more elaborate form of parameter substitution which is explained in more detail below.
Tl;dr: If the string passed into this function is empty, we again exit from the subshell ( ... )
and return from the function with the given error message.
Quoting from the ksh93
man page:
${parameter:?word}
> If parameter
is set and is non-null then substitute its value;
> otherwise, print word
and exit from the shell (if not interactive).
> If word
is omitted then a standard message is printed.
and
> If the colon :
is omitted from the above expressions, then the
> shell only checks whether parameter is set or not.
The phrasing here is peculiar to the shell documentation, as word
may refer to any reasonable string, including whitespace.
In this particular case, I know that the standard error message 1: parameter not set
is not sufficient, so I zoom in on the type of value that we expect here - the pathname
of a directory.
A philosophical note:
The shell is not an object oriented language, so the message says pathname
, not directory
. At this level, I'd rather keep it simple - the arguments to a function are just strings.
Solution 11 - Bash
if [ -d "$Directory" -a -w "$Directory" ]
then
#Statements
fi
The above code checks if the directory exists and if it is writable.
Solution 12 - Bash
find
More features using -
Check existence of the folder within sub-directories:
found=`find -type d -name "myDirectory"` if [ -n "$found" ] then # The variable 'found' contains the full path where "myDirectory" is. # It may contain several lines if there are several folders named "myDirectory". fi
-
Check existence of one or several folders based on a pattern within the current directory:
found=`find -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "my*"` if [ -n "$found" ] then # The variable 'found' contains the full path where folders "my*" have been found. fi
-
Both combinations. In the following example, it checks the existence of the folder in the current directory:
found=`find -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "myDirectory"` if [ -n "$found" ] then # The variable 'found' is not empty => "myDirectory"` exists. fi
Solution 13 - Bash
DIRECTORY=/tmp
if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ]; then
echo "Exists"
fi
Solution 14 - Bash
Actually, you should use several tools to get a bulletproof approach:
DIR_PATH=`readlink -f "${the_stuff_you_test}"` # Get rid of symlinks and get abs path
if [[ -d "${DIR_PATH}" ]] ; Then # Now you're testing
echo "It's a dir";
fi
There isn't any need to worry about spaces and special characters as long as you use "${}"
.
Note that [[]]
is not as portable as []
, but since most people work with modern versions of Bash (since after all, most people don't even work with command line :-p), the benefit is greater than the trouble.
Solution 15 - Bash
Have you considered just doing whatever you want to do in the if
rather than looking before you leap?
I.e., if you want to check for the existence of a directory before you enter it, try just doing this:
if pushd /path/you/want/to/enter; then
# Commands you want to run in this directory
popd
fi
If the path you give to pushd
exists, you'll enter it and it'll exit with 0
, which means the then
portion of the statement will execute. If it doesn't exist, nothing will happen (other than some output saying the directory doesn't exist, which is probably a helpful side-effect anyways for debugging).
It seems better than this, which requires repeating yourself:
if [ -d /path/you/want/to/enter ]; then
pushd /path/you/want/to/enter
# Commands you want to run in this directory
popd
fi
The same thing works with cd
, mv
, rm
, etc... if you try them on files that don't exist, they'll exit with an error and print a message saying it doesn't exist, and your then
block will be skipped. If you try them on files that do exist, the command will execute and exit with a status of 0
, allowing your then
block to execute.
Solution 16 - Bash
[[ -d "$DIR" && ! -L "$DIR" ]] && echo "It's a directory and not a symbolic link"
> N.B: Quoting variables is a good practice.
Explanation:
-d
: check if it's a directory-L
: check if it's a symbolic link
Solution 17 - Bash
To check more than one directory use this code:
if [ -d "$DIRECTORY1" ] && [ -d "$DIRECTORY2" ] then
# Things to do
fi
Solution 18 - Bash
[ -d ~/Desktop/TEMPORAL/ ] && echo "DIRECTORY EXISTS" || echo "DIRECTORY DOES NOT EXIST"
Solution 19 - Bash
Check if the directory exists, else make one:
[ -d "$DIRECTORY" ] || mkdir $DIRECTORY
Solution 20 - Bash
This answer wrapped up as a shell script
Examples
$ is_dir ~
YES
$ is_dir /tmp
YES
$ is_dir ~/bin
YES
$ mkdir '/tmp/test me'
$ is_dir '/tmp/test me'
YES
$ is_dir /asdf/asdf
NO
# Example of calling it in another script
DIR=~/mydata
if [ $(is_dir $DIR) == "NO" ]
then
echo "Folder doesnt exist: $DIR";
exit;
fi
is_dir
function show_help()
{
IT=$(CAT <<EOF
usage: DIR
output: YES or NO, depending on whether or not the directory exists.
)
echo "$IT"
exit
}
if [ "$1" == "help" ]
then
show_help
fi
if [ -z "$1" ]
then
show_help
fi
DIR=$1
if [ -d $DIR ]; then
echo "YES";
exit;
fi
echo "NO";
Solution 21 - Bash
Using the -e
check will check for files and this includes directories.
if [ -e ${FILE_PATH_AND_NAME} ]
then
echo "The file or directory exists."
fi
Solution 22 - Bash
if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ]; then
# Will enter here if $DIRECTORY exists
fi
This is not completely true...
If you want to go to that directory, you also need to have the execute rights on the directory. Maybe you need to have write rights as well.
Therefore:
if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ] && [ -x "$DIRECTORY" ] ; then
# ... to go to that directory (even if DIRECTORY is a link)
cd $DIRECTORY
pwd
fi
if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ] && [ -w "$DIRECTORY" ] ; then
# ... to go to that directory and write something there (even if DIRECTORY is a link)
cd $DIRECTORY
touch foobar
fi
Solution 23 - Bash
As per Jonathan's comment:
If you want to create the directory and it does not exist yet, then the simplest technique is to use mkdir -p
which creates the directory — and any missing directories up the path — and does not fail if the directory already exists, so you can do it all at once with:
mkdir -p /some/directory/you/want/to/exist || exit 1
Solution 24 - Bash
In kind of a ternary form,
[ -d "$directory" ] && echo "exist" || echo "not exist"
And with test
:
test -d "$directory" && echo "exist" || echo "not exist"
Solution 25 - Bash
The ls
command in conjunction with -l
(long listing) option returns attributes information about files and directories.
In particular the first character of ls -l
output it is usually a d
or a -
(dash). In case of a d
the one listed is a directory for sure.
The following command in just one line will tell you if the given ISDIR
variable contains a path to a directory or not:
[[ $(ls -ld "$ISDIR" | cut -c1) == 'd' ]] &&
echo "YES, $ISDIR is a directory." ||
echo "Sorry, $ISDIR is not a directory"
Practical usage:
[claudio@nowhere ~]$ ISDIR="$HOME/Music"
[claudio@nowhere ~]$ ls -ld "$ISDIR"
drwxr-xr-x. 2 claudio claudio 4096 Aug 23 00:02 /home/claudio/Music
[claudio@nowhere ~]$ [[ $(ls -ld "$ISDIR" | cut -c1) == 'd' ]] &&
echo "YES, $ISDIR is a directory." ||
echo "Sorry, $ISDIR is not a directory"
YES, /home/claudio/Music is a directory.
[claudio@nowhere ~]$ touch "empty file.txt"
[claudio@nowhere ~]$ ISDIR="$HOME/empty file.txt"
[claudio@nowhere ~]$ [[ $(ls -ld "$ISDIR" | cut -c1) == 'd' ]] &&
echo "YES, $ISDIR is a directory." ||
echo "Sorry, $ISDIR is not a directoy"
Sorry, /home/claudio/empty file.txt is not a directory
Solution 26 - Bash
There are great solutions out there, but ultimately every script will fail if you're not in the right directory. So code like this:
if [ -d "$LINK_OR_DIR" ]; then
if [ -L "$LINK_OR_DIR" ]; then
# It is a symlink!
# Symbolic link specific commands go here
rm "$LINK_OR_DIR"
else
# It's a directory!
# Directory command goes here
rmdir "$LINK_OR_DIR"
fi
fi
will execute successfully only if at the moment of execution you're in a directory that has a subdirectory that you happen to check for.
I understand the initial question like this: to verify if a directory exists irrespective of the user's position in the file system. So using the command 'find' might do the trick:
dir=" "
echo "Input directory name to search for:"
read dir
find $HOME -name $dir -type d
This solution is good because it allows the use of wildcards, a useful feature when searching for files/directories. The only problem is that, if the searched directory doesn't exist, the 'find' command will print nothing to standard output (not an elegant solution for my taste) and will have nonetheless a zero exit. Maybe someone could improve on this.
Solution 27 - Bash
file="foo"
if [[ -e "$file" ]]; then echo "File Exists"; fi;
Solution 28 - Bash
The below find
can be used,
find . -type d -name dirname -prune -print
Solution 29 - Bash
(1)
[ -d Piyush_Drv1 ] && echo ""Exists"" || echo "Not Exists"
(2)
[ `find . -type d -name Piyush_Drv1 -print | wc -l` -eq 1 ] && echo Exists || echo "Not Exists"
(3)
[[ -d run_dir && ! -L run_dir ]] && echo Exists || echo "Not Exists"
If an issue is found with one of the approaches provided above:
With the ls
command; the cases when a directory does not exists - an error message is shown
[[ `ls -ld SAMPLE_DIR| grep ^d | wc -l` -eq 1 ]] && echo exists || not exists
> -ksh: not: not found [No such file or directory]
Solution 30 - Bash
Use the file
program.
Considering all directories are also files in Linux, issuing the following command would suffice:
file $directory_name
Checking a nonexistent file: file blah
Output: cannot open 'blah' (No such file or directory)
Checking an existing directory: file bluh
Output: bluh: directory
Solution 31 - Bash
If you want to check if a directory exists, regardless if it's a real directory or a symlink, use this:
ls $DIR
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
echo "Directory $DIR already exists!"
exit 1;
fi
echo "Directory $DIR does not exist..."
Explanation: The "ls" command gives an error "ls: /x: No such file or directory" if the directory or symlink does not exist, and also sets the return code, which you can retrieve via "$?", to non-null (normally "1"). Be sure that you check the return code directly after calling "ls".
Solution 32 - Bash
From script file myScript.sh:
if [ -d /home/ec2-user/apache-tomcat-8.5.5/webapps/Gene\ Directory ]; then
echo "Directory exists!"
echo "Great"
fi
Or
if [ -d '/home/ec2-user/apache-tomcat-8.5.5/webapps/Gene Directory' ]; then
echo "Directory exists!"
echo "Great"
fi
Solution 33 - Bash
Git Bash + Dropbox + Windows:
None of the other solutions worked for my Dropbox folder, which was weird because I can Git push to a Dropbox symbolic path.
#!/bin/bash
dbox="~/Dropbox/"
result=0
prv=$(pwd) && eval "cd $dbox" && result=1 && cd "$prv"
echo $result
read -p "Press Enter To Continue:"
You'll probably want to know how to successfully navigate to Dropbox from Bash as well. So here is the script in its entirety.
Solution 34 - Bash
One Liner:
[[ -d $Directory ]] && echo true
Solution 35 - Bash
Just as an alternative to the '[ -d ]' and '[ -h ]' options, you can make use of stat
to obtain the file type and parse it.
#! /bin/bash
MY_DIR=$1
NODE_TYPE=$(stat -c '%F' ${MY_DIR} 2>/dev/null)
case "${NODE_TYPE}" in
"directory") echo $MY_DIR;;
"symbolic link") echo $(readlink $MY_DIR);;
"") echo "$MY_DIR does not exist";;
*) echo "$NODE_TYPE is unsupported";;
esac
exit 0
Test data:
$ mkdir tmp
$ ln -s tmp derp
$ touch a.txt
$ ./dir.sh tmp
tmp
$ ./dir.sh derp
tmp
$ ./dir.sh a.txt
regular file is unsupported
$ ./dir.sh god
god does not exist