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Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users Test -e not working as expected (by me) Post 302937990 by bakunin on Wednesday 11th of March 2015 08:13:21 AM
Old 03-11-2015
Test -e not working as expected (by me)

I ran into the following and still do not understand entirely the rationale behind this. If someone could explain why things are as they are I'd be thankful.

The following was tested on AIX 7.1 with ksh88, but i suspect that to be ubiquitous. In an installation routine i had to create a set of symbolic links. Because they might already exist i used test -e filename to test it:

Code:
if [ ! -e /some/link ] ; then
     ln -s /path/to/file /some/link
fi

This didn't work as expected because test returned 0 only if the link AND its target existed. If only the link exists but not the file referenced by it test will return 1.

The POSIX Documentation about test says:

Code:
-e  pathname
    True if pathname resolves to a file that exists. False if pathname cannot be resolved.

A "file that exists" is IMHO covered by a link, even if this link points to a file which doesn't. I can stat() this file and do many other operations on it which can be done with a file.

I do understand that i can use "-L", which tests for a link but i would like to understand the rationale behind the behavior. Or is the POSIX documentation inconsistent here?

bakunin
 

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SHELLTEST(1)							   version 1.2.1						      SHELLTEST(1)

NAME
shelltestrunner - test command-line programs or arbitrary shell commands SYNOPSIS
shelltest [options] {testfiles|testdirs} DESCRIPTION
shelltestrunner tests command-line programs (or arbitrary shell commands). It reads simple declarative tests specifying a command, some input, and the expected output, and can run them run in parallel, selectively, with a timeout, in color, and/or with differences high- lighted. OPTIONS
-a, --all Show all failure output, even if large -c, --color Show colored output if your terminal supports it -d, --diff Show failures in diff format -p, --precise Show failure output precisely (good for whitespace) -x STR, --exclude=STR Exclude test files whose path contains STR --execdir Run tests from within the test file's directory. Test commands normally run within your current directory; --execdir makes them run within the directory where they are defined, instead. --extension=EXT Filename suffix of test files (default: .test) -w, --with=EXECUTABLE Replace the first word of (unindented) test commands. This option replaces the first word of all test commands with something else, which can be useful for testing alternate versions of a program. Commands which have been indented by one or more spaces will not be affected by this option. --debug Show debug info, for troubleshooting --debug-parse Show test file parsing info and stop --help-format Display test format help -?, --help Display help message -V, --version Print version information -- TFOPTIONS Set extra test-framework options like -j/--threads, -t/--select-tests, -o/--timeout, --hide-successes. Use -- --help for a list. Avoid spaces. DEFINING TESTS
Test files, typically named tests/*.test, contain one or more tests consisting of: o a one-line command o optional standard input (<<<), standard output (>>>) and/or standard error output (>>>2) specifications o an exit status (>>>=) specification Test format: # optional comment the command to test <<< zero or more lines of standard input >>> zero or more lines of expected standard output (or /REGEXP/ added to the previous line) >>>2 zero or more lines of expected standard error output (or /REGEXP/ added to the previous line) >>>= EXITCODE (or /REGEXP/) o A /REGEXP/ pattern may be used instead of explicit data. In this case a match anywhere in the output allows the test to pass. The regu- lar expression syntax is regex-tdfa (http://hackage.haskell.org/package/regex-tdfa)'s. o EXITCODE is a numeric exit status (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_status), eg 0 for a successful exit. o You can put ! before a /REGEXP/ or EXITCODE to negate the match. o Comment lines beginning with # may be used between tests. EXAMPLES
Here's example.test, a file containing two simple tests: # 1. let's test that echo runs. Numbering your tests can be helpful. echo >>>= 0 # 2. and now the cat command. On windows, this one should fail. cat <<< foo >>> foo >>>= 0 Run it with shelltest: $ shelltest example.test :t.test:1: [OK] :t.test:2: [OK] Test Cases Total Passed 2 2 Failed 0 0 Total 2 2 AUTHORS
Simon Michael. shelltestrunner March 18 2012 SHELLTEST(1)
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