Linux | Learn for Master

Test whether a file or directory exist in shell

July 15, 2016 Author: david
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How to test whether a file exist in shell on Linux? We can use the test command to check file types and whether it exits.

How to test whether a path is a regular file in shell on Linux

We can use the following command to test whether a path is a regular file and exist.

test -f some_file if [[ $? == 0 ]] ; then echo "some_file is a file and exist" fi

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test -f some_file
if [[ $? == 0 ]] ; then
echo "some_file is a file and exist"
fi

How to test whether a path is a folder in shell

Using the following command, we can test whether a path is a folder in shell on linux.

test -d some_folder if [[ $? == 0 ]] ; then echo "some_folder is a folder and exist" fi

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test -d some_folder
if [[ $? == 0 ]] ; then
echo "some_folder is a folder and exist"
fi

How to test whether a file is a symbolic link on linux?
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tar all the files under a directory on linux

July 15, 2016 Author: david
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We often need to tar all the files under a directory into a zip file. This post gives two examples to show how to tar all the contents under a directory into a tgz file.

Suppose we have directory structures like

my_folder --- file1 --- file2 --- file3

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my_folder
   --- file1
   --- file2
   --- file3

By running the following command, we can tar all the files of my_folder into the tgz file.

tar -czvf my_folder.tgz my_folder

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tar -czvf my_folder.tgz my_folder

However, you will find that you actually include the my_folder in the zip file. The structure of the tgz file will looks like this.

my_folder --- file1 --- file2 --- file3

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my_folder
   --- file1
   --- file2
   --- file3

What if you want the file structures like this:

file1 file2 </code>file3

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file1
file2
</code>file3

Two methods tar all the files under a directory into a tgz file

You can use the following command to include only the files under my_folder to the zip file:

cd my_folder tar -zcvf ../my_folder.tgz . cd .. or cd my_folder/ && tar -zcvf ../my_folder.tgz . && cd ..

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cd my_folder
tar -zcvf ../my_folder.tgz .
cd ..

or

cd my_folder/ && tar -zcvf ../my_folder.tgz . && cd ..

Using the -C option to tar all the files under a directory into a tgz file

You can also using the -C option to include all the files under your directory into a zip file:

tar -czvf my_folder.tar.gz -C my_folder .

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tar -czvf my_folder.tar.gz -C my_folder .

The -C my_folder tells tar to change the current directory to my_folder,
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