How can I check if a directory exists in a Bash shell script?

Question

What command can be used to check if a directory exists or not, within a Bash shell script?

Answer 1

More features using find

• Check existence of the folder within sub-directories:

  found=`find -type d -name "myDirectory"`
  if [ -n "$found"]
  then
      # The variable 'found' contains the full path where "myDirectory" is.
      # It may contain several lines if there are several folders named "myDirectory".
  fi
  

• Check existence of one or several folders based on a pattern within the current directory:

  found=`find -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "my*"`
  if [ -n "$found"]
  then
      # The variable 'found' contains the full path where folders "my*" have been found.
  fi
  

• Both combinations. In the following example, it checks the existence of the folder in the current directory:

  found=`find -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "myDirectory"`
  if [ -n "$found"]
  then
      # The variable 'found' is not empty => "myDirectory"` exists.
  fi