bash

rignes · 02-18-2006, 07:01 AM

I need to check for the existence of jpg, gif, and png files in a directory and if none exist I need to exit with an error. The existence check needs to be case insensitive so that it will find JPG or jpg for example.

I tried:

shopt -s nocaseglob
if [ ! -e *jpg && ! -e *gif && ! -e *png ]; then
echo "No images files found."
exit 1
fi

This isn't catching that no images are in the directory and the script just keeps running, giving tons of errors because the rest of the script relies on the existence of these image files.

I've been thinking over this for about an hour and tried several other things that gave the same result. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

rignes · 02-18-2006, 07:06 AM

Wow, am I dumb! I just realised my error. I should be doing:

shopt -s nocaseglob
if [ ! -e *jpg ] && [ ! -e *gif ] && [ ! -e *png ]; then
echo "No images files found."
exit 1
fi

However, now when there ARE images present I get this error when the script hits that line:

/home/rignes/bin/gal: line 42: [: too many arguments

What does this mean? And why would in not error out when no images are present but only when images are?

I've just become very confused.

95se · 02-18-2006, 11:47 AM

perhaps just considering doing something like

Code:

if [ "`ls | grep -i '\(\.gif\|\.jpg\|\.png\)' | wc -l`" -eq 0 ]; then
 echo "No image files found."
 exit 1
fi

Using grep w/ the -i option has the benefit of being case insensitive.

alienDog · 02-18-2006, 11:48 AM

[ is actually a symbolic link to "test" program (man test). Test can only check for the existece of ONE file at the time. The problem with your code is that when there are several matches for (for example) *jpg, the shell expands *jpg to ALL the matching files causing test to get too many arguments (more than one filename), just like it says.

--edit--

The solution suggested by 95se seems pretty elegant to me. You might want to use the "end-anchor" ($) in your grep statement to make sure that it only matches the files that end with .gif, .jpg or .png, instead of matching every filename that has the string. It would make it:

Code:

grep -i '\(\.gif\|\.jpg\|\.png\)$'

rignes · 02-18-2006, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 95se

perhaps just considering doing something like

Code:

if [ "`ls | grep -i '\(\.gif\|\.jpg\|\.png\)' | wc -l`" -eq 0 ]; then
 echo "No image files found."
 exit 1
fi

Using grep w/ the -i option has the benefit of being case insensitive.

Actually, I came up with something similar since I last posted. But your way if better than mine. Thanks!

ta0kira · 02-18-2006, 03:02 PM

I prefer 'find' because it will search recursively and you can control the file types:

Code:

#You need to filter out irregular files such as directories and devices
if [ -z "`find -type f -name "*\.jpg" -name "*\.gif" -name "*\.png"`" ]; then
  echo "ERROR!"
  exit
else
  #...
fi

ta0kira