Perl file exists test - How to test if a file exists

Perl file exists FAQ: How can I perform a test to see if a file exists with Perl?

You can test to see if a file exists with the Perl "-e" file operator.

A Perl file exists example

Here's a short Perl "file exists" test/example:

$filename = 'tempfile.pl';
if (-e $filename) {
  print "the file exists\n";
} else {
  print "the file does not exist!\n";
}

As you can see, to test whether a file exists in Perl, you just use the -e operator with a test operator, like the if statement (or an "unless" statement, or other operator).

Perl file exists - Other file test operators

Instead of just using the Perl -e operator to see if a file exists, you may want to use one of these other file operators to be a little more specific about what you're looking for:

-z 	The file exists and has zero size
-s 	The file exists and has non-zero size

Other ways to write your Perl file tests

There are many ways to write Perl code to test whether a file exists. In addition to the previous example, here are a few different examples of tests you can write.

Here's an example showing how to die unless a file you need exists:

die "The file $filename does not exist, and I can't go on without it." unless -e $filename;

Here's an example showing how to avoid clobbering a file that already exists:

die "The file $filename exists and I don't want to clobber it." if -e $filename;

Perl file exists - Summary

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