test.1 (2010 09)

t
test(1) test(1)
NAME
test - condition evaluation command
SYNOPSIS
test expr
[ expr ]
DESCRIPTION
The test command evaluates the expression expr and, if its value is True, returns a zero (true) exit
status; otherwise, a nonzero (false) exit status is returned.
test also returns a nonzero 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 symbolic link.
-t [ fildes ] True if the open file whose file descriptor number is fildes (1 by default) is associ-
ated 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.
Note that all the operators and flags are separate arguments to
test. Note also that parentheses are
significant to the shell and therefore must be escaped. All file test operators return success if the argu-
ment is a symbolic link that points to a file of the file type being tested.
test is interpreted directly by the shell, and therefore does not exist as a separate executable program.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
International Code Set Support
Single byte and multibyte character code sets are supported.
HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1