shell - Check if passed argument is file or directory in Bash

Question

I'm trying to write an extremely simple script in Ubuntu which would allow me to pass it either a filename or a directory, and be able to do something specific when it's a file, and something else when it's a directory. The problem I'm having is when the directory name, or probably files too, has spaces or other escapable characters are in the name.

Here's my basic code down below, and a couple tests.

#!/bin/bash

PASSED=$1

if [ -d "${PASSED}" ] ; then
    echo "$PASSED is a directory";
else
    if [ -f "${PASSED}" ]; then
        echo "${PASSED} is a file";
    else
        echo "${PASSED} is not valid";
        exit 1
    fi
fi

And here's the output:

andy@server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy/
/home/andy/ is a directory

andy@server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy/blah.txt
/home/andy/blah.txt is a file

andy@server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy/blah with a space.txt
/home/andy/blah with a space.txt is not valid

andy@server~ $ ./scripts/testmove.sh /home/andy with a space/
/home/andy with a space/ is not valid

All of those paths are valid, and exist.

Answer 1

That should work. I am not sure why it's failing. You're quoting your variables properly. What happens if you use this script with double [[ ]]?

if [[ -d $PASSED ]]; then
    echo "$PASSED is a directory"
elif [[ -f $PASSED ]]; then
    echo "$PASSED is a file"
else
    echo "$PASSED is not valid"
    exit 1
fi

Double square brackets is a bash extension to [ ]. It doesn't require variables to be quoted, not even if they contain spaces.

Also worth trying: -e to test if a path exists without testing what type of file it is.