Shell Programming and Scripting

@methyl that explanation is for OTHER noobs who read the forum. Not explaining it to Corona. Just in case people search their question before asking a new one and want to understand what they're looking at. Don't be so quick to pull the trigger :-).
@lio if you want to see if the dir and subdir exists just use the full path to the subdir. If the subdir exists, it's parent dir exists.

@DC_Slick . Oops. I misread "I only do this if you're new to shell scripts" which on reflection is unusual use of English. I read it as "I'd only do this if you're new to shell scripts".

It is indeed important to know the difference between a Conditional Expression and a Test. In most Shell "man" pages there is a separate section on Conditional Expressions but the Shell manual may refer you to "man test" for the syntax of a Test even when "test" is a Shell builtin.
Corona688's post uses a Conditional Expression and mine uses a Test. The fact that they both use a "-d" parameter is a coincidence of syntax rather than a rule.