Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!prls!pyramid!infmx!dberg
From: dberg@informix.com (David I. Berg)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: testing if a file is present
Message-ID: <1990Nov21.155149.3505@informix.com>
Date: 21 Nov 90 15:51:49 GMT
References: <ger.659126250@prisma>
Sender: news@informix.com (Usenet News)
Distribution: comp.unix
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.
Lines: 13

In article <ger.659126250@prisma> ger@prisma.cv.ruu.nl (Ger Timmens) writes:
>Can anybody tell me how I can verify whether a file exists or not ?
>I want to move files and only when they exist ! mv "file" gives an
>error message if "file" not exists 

if (-f filename) will return true if the file exists, false if not.
There are many other options for which you can also test:
-d if filename is a directory,
-z if filename is zero length,
-w if filename is writable,
etc.

RTFM!