test(1) — Linux manual page

TEST(1)                       User Commands                      TEST(1)

NAME         top

       test - check file types and compare values

SYNOPSIS         top

       test EXPRESSION
       test
       [ EXPRESSION ]
       [ ]
       [ OPTION

DESCRIPTION         top

       Exit with the status determined by EXPRESSION.

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

       An omitted EXPRESSION defaults to false.  Otherwise, EXPRESSION
       is true or false and sets exit status.  It is one of:

       ( EXPRESSION )
              EXPRESSION is true

       ! EXPRESSION
              EXPRESSION is false

       EXPRESSION1 -a EXPRESSION2
              both EXPRESSION1 and EXPRESSION2 are true

       EXPRESSION1 -o EXPRESSION2
              either EXPRESSION1 or EXPRESSION2 is true

       -n STRING
              the length of STRING is nonzero

       STRING equivalent to -n STRING

       -z STRING
              the length of STRING is zero

       STRING1 = STRING2
              the strings are equal

       STRING1 != STRING2
              the strings are not equal

       INTEGER1 -eq INTEGER2
              INTEGER1 is equal to INTEGER2

       INTEGER1 -ge INTEGER2
              INTEGER1 is greater than or equal to INTEGER2

       INTEGER1 -gt INTEGER2
              INTEGER1 is greater than INTEGER2

       INTEGER1 -le INTEGER2
              INTEGER1 is less than or equal to INTEGER2

       INTEGER1 -lt INTEGER2
              INTEGER1 is less than INTEGER2

       INTEGER1 -ne INTEGER2
              INTEGER1 is not equal to INTEGER2

       FILE1 -ef FILE2
              FILE1 and FILE2 have the same device and inode numbers

       FILE1 -nt FILE2
              FILE1 is newer (modification date) than FILE2

       FILE1 -ot FILE2
              FILE1 is older than FILE2

       -b FILE
              FILE exists and is block special

       -c FILE
              FILE exists and is character special

       -d FILE
              FILE exists and is a directory

       -e FILE
              FILE exists

       -f FILE
              FILE exists and is a regular file

       -g FILE
              FILE exists and is set-group-ID

       -G FILE
              FILE exists and is owned by the effective group ID

       -h FILE
              FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -L)

       -k FILE
              FILE exists and has its sticky bit set

       -L FILE
              FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -h)

       -N FILE
              FILE exists and has been modified since it was last read

       -O FILE
              FILE exists and is owned by the effective user ID

       -p FILE
              FILE exists and is a named pipe

       -r FILE
              FILE exists and the user has read access

       -s FILE
              FILE exists and has a size greater than zero

       -S FILE
              FILE exists and is a socket

       -t FD  file descriptor FD is opened on a terminal

       -u FILE
              FILE exists and its set-user-ID bit is set

       -w FILE
              FILE exists and the user has write access

       -x FILE
              FILE exists and the user has execute (or search) access

       Except for -h and -L, all FILE-related tests dereference symbolic
       links.  Beware that parentheses need to be escaped (e.g., by
       backslashes) for shells.  INTEGER may also be -l STRING, which
       evaluates to the length of STRING.

       Binary -a and -o are ambiguous.  Use 'test EXPR1 && test EXPR2'
       or 'test EXPR1 || test EXPR2' instead.

       '[' honors --help and --version, but 'test' treats them as
       STRINGs.

       Your shell may have its own version of test and/or [, which
       usually supersedes the version described here.  Please refer to
       your shell's documentation for details about the options it
       supports.

AUTHOR         top

       Written by Kevin Braunsdorf and Matthew Bradburn.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       GNU coreutils online help:
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to
       <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+:
       GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute
       it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO         top

       access(2)

       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/test>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) test invocation'

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
       manipulation utilities) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the tarball coreutils-9.5.tar.xz fetched from
       ⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/⟩ on 2024-06-14.  If you
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       the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
       manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

GNU coreutils 9.5              March 2024                        TEST(1)

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