[K12OSN] OT: bash scripting - check for permissions, check for existence of file in directory tree

[David Hopkins]

What about using the locate command (which is much faster) in a
script? And then testing if the command returned successfully, e.g.

locate somefile
if [ $? -eq 0 ] then
# successfully located somefile
# operate on the file (or check that it is part of the correct
directory structure?)
fi

$? returns the success/failure of the immediately preceding command.
and if run updatedb each night, locate will work for any but the most
recent files?

Sincerely,
Dave Hopkins


On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 7:49 AM, Rob Owens
<rob.owens at biochemfluidics.com> wrote:
> Nils Breunese wrote:
>> Rob Owens wrote:
>>
>>> Nils Breunese wrote:
>>>> Rob Owens wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 2) I need to check for the existence of a file somewhere in a directory
>>>>> tree (with lots of subdirectories).
>>>>
>>>> ----
>>>> find <directory> -name <filename>
>>>> ----
>>>>
>>> I thought of that, but suspected there might be a better way.  Guess I
>>> was wrong.
>>
>> Better in what way?
>>
> I'm not actually looking to find a file and output it, I need to perform
> some action if a file exists.  Since I don't know where the file is, I
> guess I've got to find it first...
>
> I was hoping there would be a recursive way of doing:  if [ -f $FILE ];
> then  (or some other one-liner).
>
> -Rob
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