Validating files and directories

[irenezerafa]

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 3:09 PM, Chris F.A. Johnson 
<chris@cfajohnson.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 13 Nov 2021, irenezerafa wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > > The unary -a and -e operators in test are identical in bash.
> > >
> > > If you want more backstory, check the POSIX test(1p) man page:
> > >
> > > but there was no easy way to determine that an existing file was a reg‐
> > >
> > > ular file. An early proposal used the KornShell -a primary (with the
> > >
> > > same meaning), but this was changed to -e because there were concerns
> > >
> > > about the high probability of humans confusing the -a primary with the
> > >
> > > -a binary operator.
> >
> > > The POSIX test command only supports the unary -e operator, and does not
> > > list a unary -a operator. (And the binary -a is considered obsolescent.)
> >
> > Gnu Bash could moves on and stop supporting and maintaining -a.
> >
> > Here is what bash reference manual says -
> >
> > 6.4 Bash Conditional Expressions
> >
> > -a file
> >
> > True if file exists.
> >
> > -e file
> >
> > True if file exists.
> >
> > How is anybody able to figure out anything from that !
>
> It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if they are both
> documented as doing the same thing that they DO actually do
> the same thing.
>
>     Chris F.A. Johnson

Hi Chris, one could reduce unnecessary redundancy by deprecating it
and making it obsolete as mentioned by Greg.