Check if a directory exists in a shell script

Question

What command can be used to check if a directory exists or not, within a shell script?

Answer 1

The ls command in conjunction with -l (long listing) option returns attributes information about files and directories.
In particular the first character of ls -l output it is usually a d or a - (dash). In case of a d the one listed is a directory for sure.

The following command in just one line will tell you if the given ISDIR variable contains a path to a directory or not:

[[ $(ls -ld "$ISDIR" | cut -c1) == 'd' ]] &&
    echo "YES, $ISDIR is a directory." || 
    echo "Sorry, $ISDIR is not a directory"

Practical usage:

    [claudio@nowhere ~]$ ISDIR="$HOME/Music" 
    [claudio@nowhere ~]$ ls -ld "$ISDIR"
    drwxr-xr-x. 2 claudio claudio 4096 Aug 23 00:02 /home/claudio/Music
    [claudio@nowhere ~]$ [[ $(ls -ld "$ISDIR" | cut -c1) == 'd' ]] && 
        echo "YES, $ISDIR is a directory." ||
        echo "Sorry, $ISDIR is not a directory"
    YES, /home/claudio/Music is a directory.

    [claudio@nowhere ~]$ touch "empty file.txt"
    [claudio@nowhere ~]$ ISDIR="$HOME/empty file.txt" 
    [claudio@nowhere ~]$ [[ $(ls -ld "$ISDIR" | cut -c1) == 'd' ]] && 
        echo "YES, $ISDIR is a directory." || 
        echo "Sorry, $ISDIR is not a directoy"
    Sorry, /home/claudio/empty file.txt is not a directory

Answer 2

Type this code on the bash promt

if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ]; then
  # if true this block of code will execute
fi

Answer 3

Remember to always wrap variables in double quotes when referencing them in a bash script. Kids these days grow up with the idea that they can have spaces and lots of other funny characters in their directory names. (Spaces! Back in my days, we didn't have no fancy spaces! ;))

One day, one of those kids will run your script with $DIRECTORY set to "My M0viez" and your script will blow up. You don't want that. So use this.

if [ -d "$DIRECTORY" ]; then
    # Will enter here if $DIRECTORY exists, even if it contains spaces
fi

Answer 4

Note the -d test can produce some surprising results:

$ ln -s tmp/ t
$ if [ -d t ]; then rmdir t; fi
rmdir: directory "t": Path component not a directory

File under: "When is a directory not a directory?" The answer: "When it's a symlink to a directory." A slightly more thorough test:

if [ -d t ]; then 
   if [ -L t ]; then 
      rm t
   else 
      rmdir t
   fi
fi

You can find more information in the Bash manual on Bash conditional expressions and the [ builtin command and the [[ compound commmand.

Answer 5

To check more than one directory use this code:

if [ -d "$DIRECTORY1" ] && [ -d "$DIRECTORY2" ] then
    # Things to do
fi

Answer 6

Below find can be used,

find . -type d -name dirname -prune -print