Check if file exists in a directory specified by regex Linux

Question

I'm trying to use regex inside a file operator to seek for a file where one subdirectory is specified with a regex, but I wonder if it's even possible. I think I tried all the quote and bracket combinations possible. Either I'm missing something here, or a file operator requires a specific path?

I'm not entirely sure. Could somebody please clarify?

What I want to achieve is something like this (this obviously doesn't work because it takes the regex part as name of the subdirectory)

if [[ -r '/agent/[0-9 .]*/bin/run.sh' ]]

Could you give concrete examples for the name of the variable subdirectory? So that we can check with the regex — Mehdi Yedes
– Mehdi Yedes, Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 12:31

pacholik · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-22 12:36:55Z

5

find has a -regex option

-regex pattern

File name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match on the whole path, not a search. For example, to match a file named ./fubar3', you can use the regular expression.*bar.' or .*b.*3, but not f.*r3. The regular expressions understood by find are by default Emacs Regular Expressions, but this can be changed with the -regextype option.

if find . -regex '/agent/[0-9 \.]*/bin/run.sh'

answered Jun 22, 2016 at 12:36

pacholik

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Thilo Schulz · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-22 12:43:13Z

1

According to the manual, only the =~ operator does regex matching.

There's another way though:

RUNFILES=$( find /agent -name run.sh | grep -e '^/agent/[0-9 .]*/bin/run.sh$' )
if [ -n "$RUNFILES" ]
then
[...]
fi

answered Jun 22, 2016 at 12:43

Thilo Schulz

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TMNuclear Over a year ago

Thank you for the worked out example. Yours and @pacholik's are both good answers. First answer does it in 1 line though, so will base best answer on that. Thank you again!

Mehdi Yedes · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-22 12:42:11Z

0

You can simply use the ls command with a regular expression:

if ls /agent/[0-9\ .]*/bin/run.sh

answered Jun 22, 2016 at 12:42

Mehdi Yedes

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1 Comment

TMNuclear Over a year ago

Seems the regex part is also taken as part of the stringset in this case as well.

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