Shell Script To Create Files and Directories That Do Not Exist

in Categories Academic, Decision Making, File-management last updated February 19, 2009
#!/bin/bash
# Shell script to create files and directories that do not exist
# This script also demonstrate use of functions and command line arguments using getopts command
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Copyright (c) 2004 nixCraft project <http://www.cyberciti.biz/fb/>
# This script is licensed under GNU GPL version 2.0 or above
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This script is part of nixCraft shell script collection (NSSC)
# Visit http://bash.cyberciti.biz/ for more information.
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
usage(){
	echo "Usage: $0 {-f filename} {-d dirname}"
	exit 1
}
 
createDir(){
	if [ ! -d $1 ]
	then
		/bin/mkdir -p $1 >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "Directory $1 created." ||  echo "Error: Failed to create $1 directory."
	else
		echo "Error: $1 directory exits!"
	fi
}
 
createFile(){
	if [ ! -f $1 ] 
	then
		touch $1 > /dev/null 2>&1 && echo "File $1 created."  ||  echo "Error: Failed to create $1 files."
	else
		echo "Error: $1 file exists!"
	fi
}
 
while getopts f:d:v option
do
        case "${option}"
        in
                f) createFile ${OPTARG};;
                d) createDir ${OPTARG};;
                \?) usage
                    exit 1;;
        esac
done

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5 comment

  1. Yeah, this script isn’t multi-process safe. Is there any other way, which is multiprocess safe as well?

  2. This script isn’t multi-process safe.
    Test it by calling the same process with same file names multiple times in a wrapper script. ‘touch’ only changes last modification time, couldn’t tell you if a file is already been created.

  3. ## Print only the command name, not the full path.
## Send the output to stderr, not stdout
usage(){
  echo "Usage: ${0##*/} [-f filename ] ... | [ -d dirname ] ..." >&2
  exit 1
}

## Quote $1 or it will fail if an argument contains whitespace
createDir(){
  if [ ! -d "$1" ]
  then
    mkdir -p "$1" >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "Directory $1 created." ||  echo "Error: Failed to create $1 directory."
  else
    echo "Error: $1 directory exits!"
  fi
}

## Quote $1 or it will fail if an argument contains whitespace
createFile(){
  ## There's no need for an external command (touch)
  [ -f "$1" ] && echo "Error: $1 file exists!" || > "$1"
}

while getopts f:d:v option
do
  case $option in
    f) createFile "$OPTARG";;
    d) createDir "$OPTARG";;
    *) usage ;;
  esac
done
shift "$(( $OPTIND - 1 ))"

[ $# -gt 0 ] && usage

  4. michael: u can run this script by below.

    shell> chmod +x script_name
    shell> ./script_name

    above is one way of running the script where script_name is the name you give to the shellscript you saved.

    you can also run it as below;
    shell> sh script_name

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