If file is exists and is not empty. Always gives me the false value

Question

I have a bash script:

echo " enter file name " read $file if [ -f "$file" ] && [ -s "$file" ] then     echo " file does not exist, or is empty " else    echo " file exists and is not empty " fi 

No matter what I enter as a $file, it gives me the false value. I can even enter a file that does not even exist; it still will give me the false value. Why is that?

Answer 1

It is enough to check for -s, because it says:

FILE exists and has a size greater than zero

http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?test

also your output is switched, so it outputs does not exists when a file exists, because -s will give TRUE if file exists AND has a size > 0.

So correctly you should use:

echo " enter file name " read file if [ -s "$file" ] then     echo " file exists and is not empty " else    echo " file does not exist, or is empty " fi 

This will give you the expected output.

Also it should be

read file 

instead of

read $file 

If you want further informations, I recommand reading man test and man read