Validating files and directories

[irenezerafa]

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 1:27 PM, Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> 
wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 13, 2021 at 12:50:25PM +0000, Chris Elvidge wrote:
>
> > On 13/11/2021 06:19 am, Alex fxmbsw7 Ratchev wrote:
> > > -a is like && 'and'
> > > -e means existing at all
> > > if -e is true it may be -d -f or fifo or socket, or such
> >
> > I suggest you reread 'help test'
>
> He probably won't. And that protonmail user probably won't.

At least I do not have prejudice against others, funny face.

> So let's be explicit here:
>
> unicorn:~$ help test | grep -e -a -e -e
> -a FILE True if file exists.
> -e FILE True if file exists.
>
> The unary -a and -e operators in test are identical in bash.
>
> If you want more backstory, check the POSIX test(1p) man page:
> but there was no easy way to determine that an existing file was a reg‐
> ular file. An early proposal used the KornShell -a primary (with the
> same meaning), but this was changed to -e because there were concerns
> about the high probability of humans confusing the -a primary with the
> -a binary operator.

You seem used to give useless information like unix backstories.  Only
unix nutcases delve into that.

> The POSIX test command only supports the unary -e operator, and does not
> list a unary -a operator. (And the binary -a is considered obsolescent.)

Gnu Bash could moves on and stop supporting and maintaining -a.

Here is what bash reference manual says -

6.4 Bash Conditional Expressions

-a file
    True if file exists.

-e file
    True if file exists.

How is anybody able to figure out anything from that !