2016-10-14 07:08:22 +0700, Peter & Kelly Passchier: > WHich docs? > If I do "help test" it states: "All file operators except -h and -L are > acting on the target of a symbolic link, not on the symlink itself, if > FILE is a symbolic link." [...]
Yes, to test for file existence, the syntax is [ -e "$file" ] || [ -L "$file" ] Or: ls -d -- "$file" > /dev/null 2>&1 But even then, if it returns false, that doesn't necessarily mean the file doesn't exist. It could also be that it's impossible to tell. If you remove the 2>&1 above, the error message would help you differentiate between the cases. If using zsh instead of bash, you can also check the $ERRNO variable to see if [ -e ] failed because of ENOENT or something else. See also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/638975/how-do-i-tell-if-a-regular-file-does-not-exist-in-bash/40046642#40046642 -- Stephane
