NAME

test − condition evaluation command

SYNOPSIS

test expr
[expr]

DESCRIPTION

test evaluates the expression expr and, if its value is true, returns a zero (true) exit status; otherwise, a non-zero (false) exit status is returned.  test also returns a non-zero exit status if there are no arguments.  The following primitives are used to construct expr:

−r file true if file exists and is readable. 

−w file true if file exists and is writable. 

−x file true if file exists and is executable. 

−f file true if file exists and is a regular file. 

−d file true if file exists and is a directory. 

−c file true if file exists and is a character special file. 

−b file true if file exists and is a block special file. 

−p file true if file exists and is a named pipe (fifo). 

−u file true if file exists and its set-user- ID bit is set. 

−g file true if file exists and its set-group- ID bit is set. 

−k file true if file exists and its sticky bit is set. 

−s file true if file exists and has a size greater than zero. 

−H file true if file exists and is a hidden directory (see cdf(4)).

−h file true if file exists and is a symbolic link. 

−t [ fildes ] true if the open file whose file descriptor number is fildes (1 by default) is associated with a terminal device. 

−z s1 true if the length of string s1 is zero. 

−n s1 true if the length of the string s1 is non-zero. 

s1 = s2 true if strings s1 and s2 are identical. 

s1 != s2 true if strings s1 and s2 are not identical. 

s1 true if s1 is not the null string. 

n1 −eq n2 true if the integers n1 and n2 are algebraically equal.  Any of the comparisons −ne, −gt, −ge, −lt, and −le can be used in place of −eq. 

These primaries can be combined with the following operators:

!  unary negation operator. 

−a binary AND operator. 

−o binary OR operator (−a has higher precedence than −o). 

( expr ) parentheses for grouping. 

Notice that all the operators and flags are separate arguments to test. Notice also that parentheses are meaningful to the shell and therefore must be escaped.

test is interpreted directly by the shell. 

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

International Code Set Support

Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported. 

WARNINGS

In the second form of the command (that is, when using [], instead of the word test), the square brackets must be delimited by blanks.

AUTHOR

test was developed by the University of California, Berkeley and HP. 

SEE ALSO

find(1), sh(1), cdf(4). 

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

test: SVID2, XPG2, XPG3, proposed POSIX.2 FIPS (June 1990)

[: SVID2, XPG2, XPG3, proposed POSIX.2 FIPS (June 1990)

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 8.05: June 1991