How do I tell if a regular file does not exist in Bash?

bash file-io scripting

Bill the Lizard · Mar 12, 2009 · Viewed 2.6M times · Source

I've used the following script to see if a file exists:

#!/bin/bash

FILE=$1     
if [ -f $FILE ]; then
   echo "File $FILE exists."
else
   echo "File $FILE does not exist."
fi

What's the correct syntax to use if I only want to check if the file does not exist?

#!/bin/bash

FILE=$1     
if [ $FILE does not exist ]; then
   echo "File $FILE does not exist."
fi

Answer

The test command ([ here) has a "not" logical operator which is the exclamation point (similar to many other languages). Try this:

if [ ! -f /tmp/foo.txt ]; then
    echo "File not found!"
fi