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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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symlink(2)							System Calls Manual							symlink(2)

Name
       symlink - make symbolic link to a file

Syntax
       symlink(name1, name2)
       char *name1, *name2;

Description
       A  symbolic link name2 is created to name1 (name2 is the name of the file created, name1 is the string used in creating the symbolic link).
       Either name can be an arbitrary path name.  The files need not be on the same file system.

Return Values
       Upon successful completion, a zero (0) value is returned.  If an error occurs, the error code is  stored  in  errno,  and  a  -1  value	is
       returned.

Diagnostics
       The symbolic link is made, unless one or more of the following are true:

       [ENOTDIR]      A component of the name2 prefix is not a directory.

       [EEXIST]       The name2 already exists.

       [EACCES]       A component of the name2 path prefix denies search permission.

       [EROFS]	      The file name2 would reside on a read-only file system.

       [EFAULT]       The name1 or name2 points outside the process's allocated address space.

       [ELOOP]	      Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

       [ENAMETOOLONG] A  component of either pathname exceeded MAXNAMELEN characters, or the entire length of either pathname exceeded MAXPATHNAME
		      characters.

       [ENOENT]       The named file does not exist.

       [EIO]	      An I/O error occurred while making the directory entry for name2, or allocating the inode for name2, or writing out the link
		      contents of name2.

       [ENOSPC]       The  directory  in  which  the entry for the new symbolic link is being placed cannot be extended, because there is no space
		      left on the file system containing the directory.

       [ENOSPC]       The new symbolic link cannot be created, because there is no space left on the file system that will  contain  the  symbolic
		      link.

       [ENOSPC]       There are no free inodes on the file system on which the symbolic link is being created.

       [EDQUOT]       The  directory  in  which the entry for the new symbolic link is being placed cannot be extended because the user's quota of
		      disk blocks on the file system containing the directory has been exhausted.

       [EDQUOT]       The new symbolic link cannot be created because the user's quota of disk blocks on the file system  that	will  contain  the
		      symbolic link has been exhausted.

       [EDQUOT]       The user's quota of inodes on the file system on which the user's symbolic link is being created has been exhausted.

       [EIO]	      An I/O error occurred while making the directory entry or allocating the inode.

       [ETIMEDOUT]    A  connect  request  or remote file operation failed, because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of
		      time that is dependent on the communications protocol.

See Also
       ln(1), link(2), readlink(2), stat(2), unlink(2)

																	symlink(2)
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