How to use Bash to create a folder if it doesn't already exist?

bash directory
mlzboy picture mlzboy · Feb 5, 2011 · Viewed 315.5k times · Source 
#!/bin/bash
if [!-d /home/mlzboy/b2c2/shared/db]; then
    mkdir -p /home/mlzboy/b2c2/shared/db;
fi;

This doesn't seem to work. Can anyone help?

Answer

Maxim Sloyko picture Maxim Sloyko · Feb 5, 2011

First, in bash "[" is just a command, which expects string "]" as a last argument, so the whitespace before the closing bracket (as well as between "!" and "-d" which need to be two separate arguments too) is important:

if [ ! -d /home/mlzboy/b2c2/shared/db ]; then
  mkdir -p /home/mlzboy/b2c2/shared/db;
fi

Second, since you are using -p switch to mkdir, this check is useless, because this is what does in the first place. Just write:

mkdir -p /home/mlzboy/b2c2/shared/db;

and thats it.

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