-d foo-* within single and double square brackets

Asked Feb 16 '18 at 07:33

Active Feb 16 '18 at 07:47

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I just discovered that in bash,[[ -d foo-* ]] returns false ($? set to 1) even if a directory named foo-bar exists while [ -d foo-* ] returns true ($? set to 0)

I have to admit that I was surprised as I expected both versions to return true.

What is the rational behind this differing outcome?

asked Feb 16 '18 at 07:33

René Nyffenegger

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See also the `bash` manual about `[[ ... ]]` where it says "Word splitting and pathname expansion are not performed on the words between the `[[` and `]]`". – Kusalananda Feb 16 '18 at 07:56
I missed that. Thanks for the clarification. – René Nyffenegger Feb 16 '18 at 09:51

-d foo-* within single and double square brackets

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