Conditional expressions are used by the [[ compound command and
the test and [ builtin commands to test file attributes and
perform string and arithmetic comparisons. The test and [
commands determine their behavior based on the number of
arguments; see the descriptions of those commands for any other
command-specific actions.
Expressions are formed from the following unary or binary
primaries. Bash handles several filenames specially when they
are used in expressions. If the operating system on which bash
is running provides these special files, bash will use them;
otherwise it will emulate them internally with this behavior: If
any file argument to one of the primaries is of the form
/dev/fd/n, then file descriptor n is checked. If the file
argument to one of the primaries is one of /dev/stdin,
/dev/stdout, or /dev/stderr, file descriptor 0, 1, or 2,
respectively, is checked.
Unless otherwise specified, primaries that operate on files
follow symbolic links and operate on the target of the link,
rather than the link itself.
When used with [[, the < and > operators sort lexicographically
using the current locale. The test command sorts using ASCII
ordering.
-a file
True if file exists.
-b file
True if file exists and is a block special file.
-c file
True if file exists and is a character special file.
-d file
True if file exists and is a directory.
-e file
True if file exists.
-f file
True if file exists and is a regular file.
-g file
True if file exists and is set-group-id.
-h file
True if file exists and is a symbolic link.
-k file
True if file exists and its ``sticky'' bit is set.
-p file
True if file exists and is a named pipe (FIFO).
-r file
True if file exists and is readable.
-s file
True if file exists and has a size greater than zero.
-t fd True if file descriptor fd is open and refers to a
terminal.
-u file
True if file exists and its set-user-id bit is set.
-w file
True if file exists and is writable.
-x file
True if file exists and is executable.
-G file
True if file exists and is owned by the effective group
id.
-L file
True if file exists and is a symbolic link.
-N file
True if file exists and has been modified since it was
last read.
-O file
True if file exists and is owned by the effective user id.
-S file
True if file exists and is a socket.
file1 -ef file2
True if file1 and file2 refer to the same device and inode
numbers.
file1 -nt file2
True if file1 is newer (according to modification date)
than file2, or if file1 exists and file2 does not.
file1 -ot file2
True if file1 is older than file2, or if file2 exists and
file1 does not.
-o optname
True if the shell option optname is enabled. See the list
of options under the description of the -o option to the
set builtin below.
-v varname
True if the shell variable varname is set (has been
assigned a value).
-R varname
True if the shell variable varname is set and is a name
reference.
-z string
True if the length of string is zero.
string
-n string
True if the length of string is non-zero.
string1 == string2
string1 = string2
True if the strings are equal. = should be used with the
test command for POSIX conformance. When used with the [[
command, this performs pattern matching as described above
(Compound Commands).
string1 != string2
True if the strings are not equal.
string1 < string2
True if string1 sorts before string2 lexicographically.
string1 > string2
True if string1 sorts after string2 lexicographically.
arg1 OP arg2
OP is one of -eq, -ne, -lt, -le, -gt, or -ge. These
arithmetic binary operators return true if arg1 is equal
to, not equal to, less than, less than or equal to,
greater than, or greater than or equal to arg2,
respectively. Arg1 and arg2 may be positive or negative
integers. When used with the [[ command, Arg1 and Arg2
are evaluated as arithmetic expressions (see ARITHMETIC
EVALUATION above).
