Searching for a file in a directory

Question

I have 2 questions about that topic:

1. I need to search for a file c.txt in a directory, and I know that if [[ -f c.txt ]] will search for it at the current directory the script is running, but How do I do I search in a certain directory for example dir1 , the file a.txt?

2. In this way it will also search in all the sub directories? For example: if dir1 doesnt contain a.txt but it has dir2 that contains c.txt, will I get true or false?

Answer 1

This will find all files named a.txt

find -type f -name a.txt

This will find all files named like [something].txt

find -type f -name *.txt

If you want the return value and not the output of found files, use

find -type f -name *.txt >/dev/null
[[ $? == 0 ]] && echo "FILE FOUND" || echo "FILE NOT FOUND"

You can do more testing and even have more fun using find -exec... For more info use

man find  

EDIT: When you are NOT allowed to use find , use this

to test is a.txt exist in dir1

[[ -f "/full/path/to/file/dir1/a.txt" ]]

and to test if a.txt or c.txt exist in dir1 or dir2

[[ -f "/full/path/to/file/dir1/a.txt" || -f "/full/path/to/file/dir2/c.txt" ]] && echo "a.txt or c.txt exist!" || echo "neither a.txt nor c.txt exist"