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fexist

# $EPIC: fexist.txt,v 1.4 2008/05/28 19:46:15 jnelson Exp $

Synopsis:

$fexist(<file>)
$fexist("" <file>)

Technical:

  • The <file> argument is a dword which is different from most function arguments.
  • In the first case, <file> is a single extended word (you may surround it with double quotes if it contains spaces). Any further arguments are ignored.
  • In the second case, the first argument is an empty string, and the rest of the arguments are taken as a filename literally. Do not backslash or double quote anything in <file>.
  • Tilde-expansion is supported in both forms, both “~/file” for files in your home directory and “~user/file” for files in someone else's home directory.
  • If <file> is not a symbolic link, it exists, and you have read access to it, the return value is 1.
  • If <file> is a symbolic link and the file it points to exists, and you have read access to it, the return value is 1.
  • In the other cases (the file doesn't exist, or you can't read it), the return value is -1.

Practical:

This function is used when you want to see if a particular file exists. This could be useful to make sure a file is present before trying to load it. This function does not return 0!

Returns:

-1   file does not exist or is not readable by you.
 1   file exists and you can read it.

Examples:

$fexist(/etc/passwd)                   probably will return 1
$fexist(~/.ircrc)                      probably will return 1 too
$fexist(fake_file)                     returns -1

History:

This function first appeared in EPIC3pre7.

fexist.txt · Last modified: 2008/05/28 19:46 by 127.0.0.1