How to check if a variable is set in Bash?

Question

How do I know if a variable is set in Bash?

For example, how do I check if the user gave the first parameter to a function?

function a {
    # if $1 is set ?
}

Answer 1

Functions to check if variable is declared/unset

including empty $array=()

The following functions test if the given name exists as a variable

# The first parameter needs to be the name of the variable to be checked.
# (See example below)

var_is_declared() {
    { [[ -n ${!1+anything} ]] || declare -p $1 &>/dev/null;}
}

var_is_unset() {
    { [[ -z ${!1+anything} ]] && ! declare -p $1 &>/dev/null;} 
}

• By first testing if the variable is (un)set, the call to declare can be avoided, if not necessary.
• If however $1 contains the name of an empty $array=(), the call to declare would make sure we get the right result
• There's never much data passed to /dev/null as declare is only called if either the variable is unset or an empty array.

This functions would test as showed in the following conditions:

a;       # is not declared
a=;      # is declared
a="foo"; # is declared
a=();    # is declared
a=("");  # is declared
unset a; # is not declared

a;       # is unset
a=;      # is not unset
a="foo"; # is not unset
a=();    # is not unset
a=("");  # is not unset
unset a; # is unset

.

For more details

and a test script see my answer to the question "How do I check if a variable exists in bash?".

Remark: The similar usage of declare -p, as it is also shown by Peregring-lk's answer, is truly coincidental. Otherwise I would of course have credited it!

Answer 2

Read the "Parameter Expansion" section of the bash man page. Parameter expansion doesn't provide a general test for a variable being set, but there are several things you can do to a parameter if it isn't set.

For example:

function a {
    first_arg=${1-foo}
    # rest of the function
}

will set first_arg equal to $1 if it is assigned, otherwise it uses the value "foo". If a absolutely must take a single parameter, and no good default exists, you can exit with an error message when no parameter is given:

function a {
    : ${1?a must take a single argument}
    # rest of the function
}

(Note the use of : as a null command, which just expands the values of its arguments. We don't want to do anything with $1 in this example, just exit if it isn't set)

Answer 3

For those that are looking to check for unset or empty when in a script with set -u:

if [ -z "${var-}" ]; then
   echo "Must provide var environment variable. Exiting...."
   exit 1
fi

The regular [ -z "$var" ] check will fail with var; unbound variable if set -u but [ -z "${var-}" ] expands to empty string if var is unset without failing.

Answer 4

My prefered way is this:

$var=10
$if ! ${var+false};then echo "is set";else echo "NOT set";fi
is set
$unset var
$if ! ${var+false};then echo "is set";else echo "NOT set";fi
NOT set

So basically, if a variable is set, it becomes "a negation of the resulting false" (what will be true = "is set").

And, if it is unset, it will become "a negation of the resulting true" (as the empty result evaluates to true) (so will end as being false = "NOT set").

Answer 5

I like auxiliary functions to hide the crude details of bash. In this case, doing so adds even more (hidden) crudeness:

# The first ! negates the result (can't use -n to achieve this)
# the second ! expands the content of varname (can't do ${$varname})
function IsDeclared_Tricky
{
  local varname="$1"
  ! [ -z ${!varname+x} ]
}

Because I first had bugs in this implementation (inspired by the answers of Jens and Lionel), I came up with a different solution:

# Ask for the properties of the variable - fails if not declared
function IsDeclared()
{
  declare -p $1 &>/dev/null
}

I find it to be more straight-forward, more bashy and easier to understand/remember. Test case shows it is equivalent:

function main()
{
  declare -i xyz
  local foo
  local bar=
  local baz=''

  IsDeclared_Tricky xyz; echo "IsDeclared_Tricky xyz: $?"
  IsDeclared_Tricky foo; echo "IsDeclared_Tricky foo: $?"
  IsDeclared_Tricky bar; echo "IsDeclared_Tricky bar: $?"
  IsDeclared_Tricky baz; echo "IsDeclared_Tricky baz: $?"

  IsDeclared xyz; echo "IsDeclared xyz: $?"
  IsDeclared foo; echo "IsDeclared foo: $?"
  IsDeclared bar; echo "IsDeclared bar: $?"
  IsDeclared baz; echo "IsDeclared baz: $?"
}

main

The test case also shows that local var does NOT declare var (unless followed by '='). For quite some time I thought i declared variables this way, just to discover now that i merely expressed my intention... It's a no-op, i guess.

IsDeclared_Tricky xyz: 1
IsDeclared_Tricky foo: 1
IsDeclared_Tricky bar: 0
IsDeclared_Tricky baz: 0
IsDeclared xyz: 1
IsDeclared foo: 1
IsDeclared bar: 0
IsDeclared baz: 0

BONUS: usecase

I mostly use this test to give (and return) parameters to functions in a somewhat "elegant" and safe way (almost resembling an interface...):

#auxiliary functions
function die()
{
  echo "Error: $1"; exit 1
}

function assertVariableDeclared()
{
  IsDeclared "$1" || die "variable not declared: $1"
}

function expectVariables()
{
  while (( $# > 0 )); do
    assertVariableDeclared $1; shift
  done
}

# actual example
function exampleFunction()
{
  expectVariables inputStr outputStr
  outputStr="$inputStr world!"
}

function bonus()
{
  local inputStr='Hello'
  local outputStr= # remove this to trigger error
  exampleFunction
  echo $outputStr
}

bonus

If called with all requires variables declared:

Hello world!

else:

Error: variable not declared: outputStr

Answer 6

I always find the POSIX table in the other answer slow to grok, so here's my take on it:

   +----------------------+------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
   |   if VARIABLE is:    |    set     |         empty         |        unset          |
   +----------------------+------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
 - |  ${VARIABLE-default} | $VARIABLE  |          ""           |       "default"       |
 = |  ${VARIABLE=default} | $VARIABLE  |          ""           | $(VARIABLE="default") |
 ? |  ${VARIABLE?default} | $VARIABLE  |          ""           |       exit 127        |
 + |  ${VARIABLE+default} | "default"  |       "default"       |          ""           |
   +----------------------+------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
:- | ${VARIABLE:-default} | $VARIABLE  |       "default"       |       "default"       |
:= | ${VARIABLE:=default} | $VARIABLE  | $(VARIABLE="default") | $(VARIABLE="default") |
:? | ${VARIABLE:?default} | $VARIABLE  |       exit 127        |       exit 127        |
:+ | ${VARIABLE:+default} | "default"  |          ""           |          ""           |
   +----------------------+------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+

Note that each group (with and without preceding colon) has the same set and unset cases, so the only thing that differs is how the empty cases are handled.

With the preceding colon, the empty and unset cases are identical, so I would use those where possible (i.e. use :=, not just =, because the empty case is inconsistent).

Headings:

• set means VARIABLE is non-empty (VARIABLE="something")
• empty means VARIABLE is empty/null (VARIABLE="")
• unset means VARIABLE does not exist (unset VARIABLE)

Values:

• $VARIABLE means the result is the original value of the variable.
• "default" means the result was the replacement string provided.
• "" means the result is null (an empty string).
• exit 127 means the script stops executing with exit code 127.
• $(VARIABLE="default") means the result is the original value of the variable and the replacement string provided is assigned to the variable for future use.