How can I check if a program exists from a Bash script?

Question

How would I validate that a program exists, in a way that will either return an error and exit, or continue with the script?

It seems like it should be easy, but it\

Answer 1

It could be simpler, just:

#!/usr/bin/env bash                                                                
set -x                                                                             

# if local program 'foo' returns 1 (doesn't exist) then...                                                                               
if ! type -P foo; then                                                             
    echo 'crap, no foo'                                                            
else                                                                               
    echo 'sweet, we have foo!'                                                    
fi                                                                                 

Change foo to vi to get the other condition to fire.