Test whether a glob has any matches in bash

Question

If I want to check for the existance of a single file, I can test for it using test -e filename or [ -e filename ].

Supposing I have a glob and I want to know whether any files exist whose names match the glob. The glob can match 0 files (in which case I need to do nothing), or it can match 1 or more files (in which case I need to do something). How can I test whether a glob has any matches? (I don't care how many matches there are, and it would be best if I could do this with one if statement and no loops (simply because I find that most readable).

(test -e glob* fails if the glob matches more than one file.)

Answer 1

#!/bin/bash
set nullglob
touch /tmp/foo1 /tmp/foo2 /tmp/foo3
FOUND=0
for FILE in /tmp/foo*
do
    FOUND=$((${FOUND} + 1))
done
if [ ${FOUND} -gt 0 ]; then
    echo "I found ${FOUND} matches"
else
    echo "No matches found"
fi

Answer 2

(ls glob* &>/dev/null && echo Files found) || echo No file found

Answer 3

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# If it is set, then an unmatched glob is swept away entirely -- 
# replaced with a set of zero words -- 
# instead of remaining in place as a single word.
shopt -s nullglob

M=(*px)

if [ "${#M[*]}" -ge 1 ]; then
    echo "${#M[*]} matches."
else
    echo "No such files."
fi

Answer 4

if ls -d $glob > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo Found.
else
  echo Not found.
fi

Note that this can be very time cosuming if there are a lot of matches or file access is slow.

Answer 5

To simplify The MYYN's answer somewhat, based on his idea:

M=(*py)
if [ -e ${M[0]} ]; then
  echo Found
else
  echo Not Found
fi

Answer 6

This abomination seems to work:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set nullglob
if [ "`echo *py`" != "" ]; then
    echo "Glob matched"
else
    echo "Glob did not match"
fi

It probably requires bash, not sh.