Use BASH nullglob To Verify *.c Files Exists or Not In a Directory

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In Bash, you can use the nullglob option to verify if any files with a specific pattern exist in a directory or not. The nullglob option causes the shell to expand patterns to an empty list if no matches are found. Here’s how you can use the nullglob option to verify if *.c files exist in a directory:

  1. Open a terminal and navigate to the directory you want to check.
  2. Set the nullglob option using the following command:
    shopt -s nullglob
  3. Use the ls command to list all the *.c files in the current directory. If there are no files, the output will be empty.
    ls *.c
  4. If there are files, you can use them in your script or further processing.
  5. After you are done checking, unset the nullglob option to avoid unexpected behavior:
    shopt -u nullglob

For example, if you want to check if there are any *.c files in the /home/user/code directory, you can use the following commands:

cd /home/user/code
shopt -s nullglob
if [ -n "$(ls *.c)" ]; then
echo "C files found!"
else
echo "No C files found."
fi
shopt -u nullglob

This will check if any *.c files exist in the /home/user/code directory and output a message accordingly.

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