Test whether a glob has any matches in bash

Question

If I want to check for the existence of a single file, I can test for it using test -e filename or [ -e filename ].

Supposing I have a glob

Answer 1

#!/bin/bash
set nullglob
touch /tmp/foo1 /tmp/foo2 /tmp/foo3
FOUND=0
for FILE in /tmp/foo*
do
    FOUND=$((${FOUND} + 1))
done
if [ ${FOUND} -gt 0 ]; then
    echo "I found ${FOUND} matches"
else
    echo "No matches found"
fi

Answer 2

The nullglob shell option is indeed a bashism.

To avoid the need for a tedious save and restore of the nullglob state, I'd only set it inside the subshell that expands the glob:

if test -n "$(shopt -s nullglob; echo glob*)"
then
    echo found
else
    echo not found
fi

For better portability and more flexible globbing, use find:

if test -n "$(find . -maxdepth 1 -name 'glob*' -print -quit)"
then
    echo found
else
    echo not found
fi

Explicit -print -quit actions are used for find instead of the default implicit -print action so that find will quit as soon as it finds the first file matching the search criteria. Where lots of files match, this should run much faster than echo glob* or ls glob* and it also avoids the possibility of overstuffing the expanded command line (some shells have a 4K length limit).

If find feels like overkill and the number of files likely to match is small, use stat:

if stat -t glob* >/dev/null 2>&1
then
    echo found
else
    echo not found
fi

Answer 3

if ls -d $glob > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo Found.
else
  echo Not found.
fi

Note that this can be very time cosuming if there are a lot of matches or file access is slow.

Answer 4

Bash specific solution:

compgen -G "<glob-pattern>"

Escape the pattern or it'll get pre-expanded into matches.

Exit status is:

• 1 for no-match,
• 0 for 'one or more matches'

stdout is a list of files matching the glob.
I think this is the best option in terms of conciseness and minimizing potential side effects.

UPDATE: Example usage requested.

if compgen -G "/tmp/someFiles*" > /dev/null; then
    echo "Some files exist."
fi

Answer 5

If you have globfail set you can use this crazy (which you really should not)

shopt -s failglob # exit if * does not match 
( : * ) && echo 0 || echo 1

or

q=( * ) && echo 0 || echo 1

Answer 6

I did not see this answer, so I thought I'd put it out there:

set -- glob*
[ -f "$1" ] && echo "found $@"