TEST(1)

💅 TEST(1) — the test page, bestie edition 🎀

okay so welcome to TEST(1), the manual for test from the General Commands Manual section 1, and honestly? she's a legend. she checks file types and compares values, and she's been carrying every if statement you've ever written. no cap. 👑

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✨ NAME ✨

test — check file types and compare values. that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it flawlessly 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

test EXPRESSION
test
[ EXPRESSION ]
[ ]
[ OPTION

like… yes, [ is literally just test wearing a little outfit. same girl, different bracket. 💅

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Check file types and compare values. short description, huge impact. she's the vibe check of your shell scripts fr fr. 🌸

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -h, --help — print help 💖 (yes, -h means help here, but keep reading, because in the file-tests section -h FILE means something completely different and that's just how it is, bestie 💀)
• -V, --version — print version ✨

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✨ EXTRA ✨

Exit with the status determined by EXPRESSION. that's the whole deal — she speaks in exit codes, and every script listens. 👑

An omitted EXPRESSION defaults to false. Otherwise, EXPRESSION is true or false and sets exit status. It is one of:

• ( 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

🌈 String operations:

• -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

🧮 Integer comparisons:

• 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

🦋 File operations:

• 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 read permission is granted
• -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 write permission is granted
• -x FILE — FILE exists and execute (or search) permission is granted

Except for -h and -L, all FILE-related tests dereference (follow) symbolic links. bestie, beware that parentheses need to be escaped (e.g., by backslashes) for shells, or your shell will eat them before test ever sees them 😭 INTEGER may also be -l STRING, which evaluates to the length of STRING.

⚠️ NOTE: Binary -a and -o are inherently ambiguous. Use test EXPR1 && test EXPR2 or test EXPR1 || test EXPR2 instead. seriously. do that. 💀

⚠️ NOTE: [ honors the --help and --version options, but test does not. test treats each of those as it treats any other nonempty STRING. iconic chaotic behaviour honestly 🙈

⚠️ NOTE: your shell may have its own version of test and/or [, which usually supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports. 👑

Errors are reported with the expression echoed back and a caret under the argument at fault whenever stderr is a terminal; anything else reading stderr gets the usual single-line message. so if you're piping it somewhere, the fancy little caret moment just… doesn't happen. ✨

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✨ VERSION ✨

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

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✨ EXAMPLES ✨

Test if a given variable is equal to a given string:

test "$MY_VAR" = "/bin/zsh"

Test if a given variable is empty ([z]ero length):

test -z "$GIT_BRANCH"

Test if a [f]ile exists:

test -f "path/to/file"

Test if a [d]irectory does not exist:

test ! -d "path/to/directory"

If A is true, then do B, or C in the case of an error (notice that C may run even if A fails):

test condition && echo "true" || echo "false"

Use test in a conditional statement:

if test -f "path/to/file"; then echo "File exists"; else echo "File does not exist"; fi

🌸 The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project <https://tldr.sh> under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.

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and that's the whole page bestie, no notes, she ate and left absolutely no crumbs 💅 that was TEST(1) from uutils coreutils 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-25 — go forth and write conditionals that actually work 🫶💖✨