Re: bash if file exists

["David Rosenstrauch" <user=20@nabble.blu.org>]

 Matt Brodeur wrote: 

>> David Rosenstrauch wrote: 
>>> Matt Brodeur wrote: 
>>>> Just because you don't have *enough* different answers yet: 
>>>> 
>>>>   set -- *.zip 
>>>>   if [ -f "${1}" ] ; then 
>>> Por favor - could you explain this one? 

> I can't take credit for it.  The problem I had was when I changed an 
> existing script from "check for a file of this name and do something 
> with it" to "check for files of this pattern and loop through them." 
> Just using "[ -f filename*" seems to work, as long as there's only one 
> matching file.  With multiple matches you'll get an error from [. 
> 
> Googling the right terms reminded me that I'd learned this trick about 
> eight years ago.  Quoth Kochan and Wood[1]: 
>   "The shell's set command is a dual-purpose command: it's used both 
>   to set various shell options as well as reassign the positional 
>   parameters $1, $2, ..." 
>   "...you can use the -- option to set. This tells set not to 
>   interperet any subsequent arguments on the command line as options." 
> 
> Note that using set in this fashion resets the parameter list.  Make 
> sure you've already dealt with anything from the command line.