Check if directory exists
To check if a directory exists is quite easy in shell scripts. We have written our own backup script and within the script we use the following code:
if [ ! -d "/var/www/backups/$(date +%Y%m%d)" ]; then
echo "making directory /var/www/backups/$(date +%Y%m%d)\n"
mkdir /var/www/backups/$(date +%Y%m%d)
fi
The -d asks the question, is the following a directory and the exclamation mark ! says not. In reading terms it says, if this is not a directory then.
Once we know that it is not a directory, we can create the directory with our mkdir statement.