How to check if a symlink exists

Question

I\'m trying to check if a symlink exists in bash. Here\'s what I\'ve tried.

mda=/usr/mda
if [ ! -L $mda ]; then
  echo \"=> File doesn\'t exist\"
fi


mda         


        

Answer 1

-L is the test for file exists and is also a symbolic link

If you do not want to test for the file being a symbolic link, but just test to see if it exists regardless of type (file, directory, socket etc) then use -e

So if file is really file and not just a symbolic link you can do all these tests and get an exit status whose value indicates the error condition.

if [ ! \( -e "${file}" \) ]
then
     echo "%ERROR: file ${file} does not exist!" >&2
     exit 1
elif [ ! \( -f "${file}" \) ]
then
     echo "%ERROR: ${file} is not a file!" >&2
     exit 2
elif [ ! \( -r "${file}" \) ]
then
     echo "%ERROR: file ${file} is not readable!" >&2
     exit 3
elif [ ! \( -s "${file}" \) ]
then
     echo "%ERROR: file ${file} is empty!" >&2
     exit 4
fi