check if directory exists and delete in one command unix

Question

Why not just use rm -rf /some/dir? That will remove the directory if it's present, otherwise do nothing. Unlike rm -r /some/dir this flavor of the command won't crash if the folder doesn't exist.

Assuming $WORKING_DIR is set to the directory... this one-liner should do it:

if [ -d "$WORKING_DIR" ]; then rm -Rf $WORKING_DIR; fi

(otherwise just replace with your directory)

Try:

bash -c '[ -d my_mystery_dirname ] && run_this_command'

This will work if you can run bash on the remote machine....

In bash, [ -d something ] checks if there is directory called 'something', returning a success code if it exists and is a directory. Chaining commands with && runs the second command only if the first one succeeded. So [ -d somedir ] && command runs the command only if the directory exists.

Here is another one liner:

[[ -d /tmp/test ]] && rm -r /tmp/test

• && means execute the statement which follows only if the preceding statement executed successfully (returned exit code zero)