How do I check if either or both of the two files exist?

Question

How can I check, in shell script, if any of two files exist?

It doesn't matter which of the two files exist or if they both exist.

Solution 1

if test -e file1 || test -e file2; then
  # At least one of file1 or file2 exists
  ...
else
  # Neither file1 nor file2 exists
fi

test -e checks for mere existence. You may want a more specific test, such as -b (exists and is block special), -c (exists and is character special), -d (exists and is a directory), -f (exists and is a regular file) etc.

Solution 2

Both of the other answers run test twice. While this will work, it has the inefficiency of two process forks. You can get the "or" done in a single test with:

if [ -e file1 -o -e file2 ]; then ...

Which will be slightly more efficient.

Comments

[Eric Renouf]

You can find a lot of useful checks by reading man test

[AlexP]

Bash built-in test.