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Is “/bin/[.exe” a legitimate file? [Cygwin, Windows 10]


How exactly does “/bin/[” work?What is the purpose of square bracket executableCygwin installation messageCygwin - Shell Scripting (eval and echo)cygwin awk output to windows line delimetersFile not found (cygwin on Windows)Cygwin: CD to Windows paths easilyCygwin header file locationCygwin on Windows: Can't open displayCygwin/X DISPLAY number no longer :0?Cygwin and Tmux run-shellexecute windows program with parameters from cygwin













1















I can not find anything about this, is it a known file?
I am using a CYGWIN based terminal on windows 10



Here are their locations and the commands I used.



$ find -name [*
./bin/[.exe
./usr/bin/[.exe



$ ls -l -a -r /* | grep [-.*>]
...all other files that match this...
-rwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 67134 Nov 6 14:22 [.exe
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Apr 2 18:15 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Jan 26 03:20 .


I would like more information on this file if anyone has any knowledge about it and whether or not I can remove it.










share|improve this question









New contributor




Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.















  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What is the purpose of square bracket executable

    – roaima
    1 hour ago











  • Not necessarily, I didn't know what it was, all the times I've ls'ed into /bin/ No google searches for things close to and the title would provide much to the direct answer here below. Updated the title for relevance

    – Joe
    18 mins ago
















1















I can not find anything about this, is it a known file?
I am using a CYGWIN based terminal on windows 10



Here are their locations and the commands I used.



$ find -name [*
./bin/[.exe
./usr/bin/[.exe



$ ls -l -a -r /* | grep [-.*>]
...all other files that match this...
-rwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 67134 Nov 6 14:22 [.exe
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Apr 2 18:15 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Jan 26 03:20 .


I would like more information on this file if anyone has any knowledge about it and whether or not I can remove it.










share|improve this question









New contributor




Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.















  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What is the purpose of square bracket executable

    – roaima
    1 hour ago











  • Not necessarily, I didn't know what it was, all the times I've ls'ed into /bin/ No google searches for things close to and the title would provide much to the direct answer here below. Updated the title for relevance

    – Joe
    18 mins ago














1












1








1








I can not find anything about this, is it a known file?
I am using a CYGWIN based terminal on windows 10



Here are their locations and the commands I used.



$ find -name [*
./bin/[.exe
./usr/bin/[.exe



$ ls -l -a -r /* | grep [-.*>]
...all other files that match this...
-rwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 67134 Nov 6 14:22 [.exe
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Apr 2 18:15 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Jan 26 03:20 .


I would like more information on this file if anyone has any knowledge about it and whether or not I can remove it.










share|improve this question









New contributor




Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.












I can not find anything about this, is it a known file?
I am using a CYGWIN based terminal on windows 10



Here are their locations and the commands I used.



$ find -name [*
./bin/[.exe
./usr/bin/[.exe



$ ls -l -a -r /* | grep [-.*>]
...all other files that match this...
-rwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 67134 Nov 6 14:22 [.exe
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Apr 2 18:15 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 X 197121 0 Jan 26 03:20 .


I would like more information on this file if anyone has any knowledge about it and whether or not I can remove it.







shell cygwin






share|improve this question









New contributor




Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











share|improve this question









New contributor




Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 16 mins ago







Joe













New contributor




Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









asked 2 hours ago









JoeJoe

1092




1092




New contributor




Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.





New contributor





Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






Joe is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.







  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What is the purpose of square bracket executable

    – roaima
    1 hour ago











  • Not necessarily, I didn't know what it was, all the times I've ls'ed into /bin/ No google searches for things close to and the title would provide much to the direct answer here below. Updated the title for relevance

    – Joe
    18 mins ago













  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What is the purpose of square bracket executable

    – roaima
    1 hour ago











  • Not necessarily, I didn't know what it was, all the times I've ls'ed into /bin/ No google searches for things close to and the title would provide much to the direct answer here below. Updated the title for relevance

    – Joe
    18 mins ago








1




1





Possible duplicate of What is the purpose of square bracket executable

– roaima
1 hour ago





Possible duplicate of What is the purpose of square bracket executable

– roaima
1 hour ago













Not necessarily, I didn't know what it was, all the times I've ls'ed into /bin/ No google searches for things close to and the title would provide much to the direct answer here below. Updated the title for relevance

– Joe
18 mins ago






Not necessarily, I didn't know what it was, all the times I've ls'ed into /bin/ No google searches for things close to and the title would provide much to the direct answer here below. Updated the title for relevance

– Joe
18 mins ago











1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















4














You should not remove that file. In general, don't remove random files that you have not created yourself.



It's the executable file for the [ utility. This utility is exactly the same as test but requires that the last operand is ].



See man [ and man test.



Example of use:



[ -n "hello" ] && echo '"hello" is a non-empty string'


You would also be able to use



/bin/[.exe -n "hello" ] && echo 'That works too'


(though I don't have access to Cygwin to try it, so I don't know if you need to specify the .exe suffix on the command or not)



Note that /bin/[.exe is the executable file for the external [ utility. This utility is very often also available as a built-in utility in your shell. If your shell is bash, then man bash (and help [) would document it.



Related:



  • How exactly does "/bin/[" work?





share|improve this answer

























  • This is ironically enough, hilarious. I did not know that was a legitimate executable. I thought it as a potential security risk through a regex related attack. Thank you very much for this information, it was thoroughly explained well,... formerly not, (now should be for others), provided through google/forum indexing.

    – Joe
    28 mins ago











Your Answer








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1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes








1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









4














You should not remove that file. In general, don't remove random files that you have not created yourself.



It's the executable file for the [ utility. This utility is exactly the same as test but requires that the last operand is ].



See man [ and man test.



Example of use:



[ -n "hello" ] && echo '"hello" is a non-empty string'


You would also be able to use



/bin/[.exe -n "hello" ] && echo 'That works too'


(though I don't have access to Cygwin to try it, so I don't know if you need to specify the .exe suffix on the command or not)



Note that /bin/[.exe is the executable file for the external [ utility. This utility is very often also available as a built-in utility in your shell. If your shell is bash, then man bash (and help [) would document it.



Related:



  • How exactly does "/bin/[" work?





share|improve this answer

























  • This is ironically enough, hilarious. I did not know that was a legitimate executable. I thought it as a potential security risk through a regex related attack. Thank you very much for this information, it was thoroughly explained well,... formerly not, (now should be for others), provided through google/forum indexing.

    – Joe
    28 mins ago















4














You should not remove that file. In general, don't remove random files that you have not created yourself.



It's the executable file for the [ utility. This utility is exactly the same as test but requires that the last operand is ].



See man [ and man test.



Example of use:



[ -n "hello" ] && echo '"hello" is a non-empty string'


You would also be able to use



/bin/[.exe -n "hello" ] && echo 'That works too'


(though I don't have access to Cygwin to try it, so I don't know if you need to specify the .exe suffix on the command or not)



Note that /bin/[.exe is the executable file for the external [ utility. This utility is very often also available as a built-in utility in your shell. If your shell is bash, then man bash (and help [) would document it.



Related:



  • How exactly does "/bin/[" work?





share|improve this answer

























  • This is ironically enough, hilarious. I did not know that was a legitimate executable. I thought it as a potential security risk through a regex related attack. Thank you very much for this information, it was thoroughly explained well,... formerly not, (now should be for others), provided through google/forum indexing.

    – Joe
    28 mins ago













4












4








4







You should not remove that file. In general, don't remove random files that you have not created yourself.



It's the executable file for the [ utility. This utility is exactly the same as test but requires that the last operand is ].



See man [ and man test.



Example of use:



[ -n "hello" ] && echo '"hello" is a non-empty string'


You would also be able to use



/bin/[.exe -n "hello" ] && echo 'That works too'


(though I don't have access to Cygwin to try it, so I don't know if you need to specify the .exe suffix on the command or not)



Note that /bin/[.exe is the executable file for the external [ utility. This utility is very often also available as a built-in utility in your shell. If your shell is bash, then man bash (and help [) would document it.



Related:



  • How exactly does "/bin/[" work?





share|improve this answer















You should not remove that file. In general, don't remove random files that you have not created yourself.



It's the executable file for the [ utility. This utility is exactly the same as test but requires that the last operand is ].



See man [ and man test.



Example of use:



[ -n "hello" ] && echo '"hello" is a non-empty string'


You would also be able to use



/bin/[.exe -n "hello" ] && echo 'That works too'


(though I don't have access to Cygwin to try it, so I don't know if you need to specify the .exe suffix on the command or not)



Note that /bin/[.exe is the executable file for the external [ utility. This utility is very often also available as a built-in utility in your shell. If your shell is bash, then man bash (and help [) would document it.



Related:



  • How exactly does "/bin/[" work?






share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 2 hours ago

























answered 2 hours ago









Kusalananda♦Kusalananda

139k17259430




139k17259430












  • This is ironically enough, hilarious. I did not know that was a legitimate executable. I thought it as a potential security risk through a regex related attack. Thank you very much for this information, it was thoroughly explained well,... formerly not, (now should be for others), provided through google/forum indexing.

    – Joe
    28 mins ago

















  • This is ironically enough, hilarious. I did not know that was a legitimate executable. I thought it as a potential security risk through a regex related attack. Thank you very much for this information, it was thoroughly explained well,... formerly not, (now should be for others), provided through google/forum indexing.

    – Joe
    28 mins ago
















This is ironically enough, hilarious. I did not know that was a legitimate executable. I thought it as a potential security risk through a regex related attack. Thank you very much for this information, it was thoroughly explained well,... formerly not, (now should be for others), provided through google/forum indexing.

– Joe
28 mins ago





This is ironically enough, hilarious. I did not know that was a legitimate executable. I thought it as a potential security risk through a regex related attack. Thank you very much for this information, it was thoroughly explained well,... formerly not, (now should be for others), provided through google/forum indexing.

– Joe
28 mins ago










Joe is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.









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Joe is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.











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