TEST(1)

💖 Welcome to the test manual 💖

Okay bestie, this is the manual for test, which is TEST(1) in the User Commands section 🎀 It's literally the tool that checks file types and compares values, and I'm obsessed with it. Let's go ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

test - check file types and compare values 🦋

🧚 SYNOPSIS 🧚

test EXPRESSION
test
[ EXPRESSION ]
[ ]
[ OPTION

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

Okay so the whole point is to exit with the status determined by EXPRESSION 💅 It's giving exit codes, not printed output.

These two flags are the only ones you get, and they're giving main character energy:

• --help — shows this help and exits 🙈
• --version — outputs version info and exits ✨

If you leave out EXPRESSION entirely, it defaults to false. Otherwise the expression is either true or false, and that's what sets the exit status. Here's the whole menu 🍓

• ( EXPRESSION ) — EXPRESSION is true
• ! EXPRESSION — EXPRESSION is false
• EXPRESSION1 -a EXPRESSION2 — both EXPRESSION1 and EXPRESSION2 are true
• EXPRESSION1 -o EXPRESSION2 — either EXPRESSION1 or EXPRESSION2 is true
• -n STRING — the length of STRING is nonzero
• STRING — equivalent to -n STRING
• -z STRING — the length of STRING is zero
• STRING1 = STRING2 — the strings are equal
• STRING1 != STRING2 — the strings are not equal
• STRING1 > STRING2 — STRING1 is greater than STRING2 in the current locale
• STRING1 < STRING2 — STRING1 is less than STRING2 in the current locale
• INTEGER1 -eq INTEGER2 — INTEGER1 is equal to INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -ge INTEGER2 — INTEGER1 is greater than or equal to INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -gt INTEGER2 — INTEGER1 is greater than INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -le INTEGER2 — INTEGER1 is less than or equal to INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -lt INTEGER2 — INTEGER1 is less than INTEGER2
• INTEGER1 -ne INTEGER2 — INTEGER1 is not equal to INTEGER2
• FILE1 -ef FILE2 — FILE1 and FILE2 have the same device and inode numbers
• FILE1 -nt FILE2 — FILE1 is newer (modification date) than FILE2
• FILE1 -ot FILE2 — FILE1 is older than FILE2
• -b FILE — FILE exists and is block special
• -c FILE — FILE exists and is character special
• -d FILE — FILE exists and is a directory
• -e FILE — FILE exists
• -f FILE — FILE exists and is a regular file
• -g FILE — FILE exists and is set-group-ID
• -G FILE — FILE exists and is owned by the effective group ID
• -h FILE — FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -L)
• -k FILE — FILE exists and has its sticky bit set
• -L FILE — FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -h)
• -N FILE — FILE exists and has been modified since it was last read
• -O FILE — FILE exists and is owned by the effective user ID
• -p FILE — FILE exists and is a named pipe
• -r FILE — FILE exists and the user has read access
• -s FILE — FILE exists and has a size greater than zero
• -S FILE — FILE exists and is a socket
• -t FD — file descriptor FD is opened on a terminal
• -u FILE — FILE exists and its set-user-ID bit is set
• -w FILE — FILE exists and the user has write access
• -x FILE — FILE exists and the user has execute (or search) access

Quick vibe check on the file tests: except for -h and -L, all FILE-related tests dereference symbolic links 🔗 Also, parentheses need to be escaped (e.g., by backslashes) for shells, so don't skip that 🫶 And INTEGER may also be -l STRING, which evaluates to the length of STRING 🧮

⚠️ Binary -a and -o are ambiguous, so it's giving chaos. Use test EXPR1 && test EXPR2 or test EXPR1 || test EXPR2 instead 😭

🙈 [ honors --help and --version, but test treats them as STRINGs. Iykyk.

Your shell might have its own version of test and/or [, and that version usually takes over from the one described here 💅 Check your shell's documentation for the options it supports.

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🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Written by Kevin Braunsdorf and Matthew Bradburn 💜

🐞 REPORTING BUGS 🐞

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> 🌈 Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/> 🌍

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• access(2) ⭐

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/test> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) test invocation' 📖

Packaged by Debian (9.7-3) 📦 Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 💖 License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

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Served fresh from GNU coreutils 9.7, June 2025, with love from your bestie 🫶💅✨