Test if program exists in Bash Script - abbreviated version

Question

I want to use the abbreviated if then else to determine if ccze exists before using it... and I just cannot get that first part right...

test() {
    [  $(hash ccze) 2>/dev/null ] && echo "yes"  || echo "no"
}

The above is just test.. what am I doing wrong? It does not matter if ccze exists or not - I'm getting "no"

Answer 1

testcmd () {
    command -v "$1" >/dev/null
}

Using it:

if testcmd hello; then
    echo 'hello is in the path'
else
    echo 'hello is not in the path'
fi

or

testcmd man && echo yes || echo no

or you could put that into a function:

ptestcmd () {
    testcmd "$1" && echo 'yes' || echo 'no'
}

This way you'll have one function that does testing and a separate function that does printing dependent on the test result. You may then use the one taht is appropriate for the situation (you may not always want output).