test

test EXPRESSION
test
test EXPRESSION ]
test ]
test OPTION

Check file types and compare values.

Options

Exit with the status determined by EXPRESSION.

An omitted EXPRESSION defaults to false. Otherwise, EXPRESSION is true or false and sets exit status.

It is one of:

• ( EXPRESSION ) EXPRESSION is true
• ! EXPRESSION EXPRESSION is false
• EXPRESSION1 -a EXPRESSION2 both EXPRESSION1 and EXPRESSION2 are true
• EXPRESSION1 -o EXPRESSION2 either EXPRESSION1 or EXPRESSION2 is true

String operations:

• -n STRING the length of STRING is nonzero
• STRING equivalent to -n STRING
• -z STRING the length of STRING is zero
• STRING1 = STRING2 the strings are equal
• STRING1 != STRING2 the strings are not equal

Integer comparisons:

• INTEGER1 -eq INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is equal to INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -ge INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is greater than or equal to INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -gt INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is greater than INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -le INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is less than or equal to INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -lt INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is less than INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -ne INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is not equal to INTEGER2

File operations:

• FILE1 -ef FILE2 FILE1 and FILE2 have the same device and inode numbers

• FILE1 -nt FILE2 FILE1 is newer (modification date) than FILE2

• FILE1 -ot FILE2 FILE1 is older than FILE2

• -b FILE FILE exists and is block special

• -c FILE FILE exists and is character special

• -d FILE FILE exists and is a directory

• -e FILE FILE exists

• -f FILE FILE exists and is a regular file

• -g FILE FILE exists and is set-group-ID

• -G FILE FILE exists and is owned by the effective group ID

• -h FILE FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -L)

• -k FILE FILE exists and has its sticky bit set

• -L FILE FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -h)

• -N FILE FILE exists and has been modified since it was last read

• -O FILE FILE exists and is owned by the effective user ID

• -p FILE FILE exists and is a named pipe

• -r FILE FILE exists and read permission is granted

• -s FILE FILE exists and has a size greater than zero

• -S FILE FILE exists and is a socket

• -t FD file descriptor FD is opened on a terminal

• -u FILE FILE exists and its set-user-ID bit is set

• -w FILE FILE exists and write permission is granted

• -x FILE FILE exists and execute (or search) permission is granted

Except for -h and -L, all FILE-related tests dereference (follow) symbolic links. Beware that parentheses need to be escaped (e.g., by backslashes) for shells. INTEGER may also be -l STRING, which evaluates to the length of STRING.

NOTE: Binary -a and -o are inherently ambiguous. Use test EXPR1 && test EXPR2 or test EXPR1 || test EXPR2 instead.

NOTE: [ honors the --help and --version options, but test does not. test treats each of those as it treats any other nonempty STRING.

NOTE: your shell may have its own version of test and/or [, which usually supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports.

Examples

Test if a given variable is equal to a given string:

test "{{$MY_VAR}}" = "{{/bin/zsh}}"

Test if a given variable is empty ([z]ero length):

test -z "{{$GIT_BRANCH}}"

Test if a [f]ile exists:

test -f "{{path/to/file_or_directory}}"

Test if a [d]irectory does not exist:

test ! -d "{{path/to/directory}}"

If A is true, then do B, or C in the case of an error (notice that C may run even if A fails):

test {{condition}} && {{echo "true"}} || {{echo "false"}}

The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project under the CC BY 4.0 License.

Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.