-n STRING (conditional operator)

true if the string is not empty, i.e. if its length is non-zero. This is usually only useful for strings, which contain variables or sub-expressions.

-z tests if a string is empty.

Links

• Bash manual
• POSIX specification of test

Examples

Different ways to test if a string is not empty:

1 2 3 4

test -n "$name" && echo "not empty" [ -n "$name" ] && echo "not empty" # Bash [[ -n "$name" ]] && echo "not empty"