How to create multiple directories using shell script

Don't use "if" statements for such simple task, use "-p, --parents" of mkdir to create several directories that doesn't exist and ignore existing ones.

Combine that capability using metacharacters to expand subfolders creations.

In this example I've created the next structure with one command:

-/home |---/usw9bls7 |------- DNQ |---- lib1 |---- config1 user@DESKTOP-RR909JI ~ $ mkdir -p /home/usw9bls7/DNQ/{lib1,config1} user@DESKTOP-RR909JI ~ $ ls -ltr /home/usw9bls7/DNQ/ total 0 drwxr-xr-x+ 1 user user 0 jun. 29 20:17 lib1 drwxr-xr-x+ 1 user user 0 jun. 29 20:17 config1 

None of these directories existed before in my environment (except for /home). Anyway if you want to create the script try simplifying things with this.

Using brace expansion if you use bash:

directory_name="/home/usw9bls7/lib1" if [ -d "$directory_name" ];then echo "Directory already exists" else mkdir -p /home/usw9bls7/{config1,DNQ/lib1,DNQ/config1}/"$directory_name" fi 

Example: with echo command.

echo /home/usw9bls7/{config1,DNQ/lib1,DNQ/config1} /home/usw9bls7/config1 /home/usw9bls7/DNQ/lib1 /home/usw9bls7/DNQ/config1 

Portable POSIX solution (works in /bin/ksh, /bin/sh, and /bin/bash)

#!/bin/sh parent_directory="/home/usw9bls7/lib1" for directory_name in config1 DNQ/lib1 DNQ/config1 do if [ -d "$parent_directory/$directory_name" ] then echo "Directory already exists" else mkdir -p "$parent_directory/$directory_name" fi done 

This merely loops over your given names and then makes them. I added the -p option so that it will silently create missing parents like DNQ as needed.

Note that if these exist as files rather than directories, you'll get errors from mkdir. At least you'll get something.

Pass them all to mkdir -p:

mkdir -p \ "/home/usw9bls7/config1" \ "/home/usw9bls7/DNQ/lib1" \ "/home/usw9bls7/DNQ/config1" 

If you're super performance-conscious, you can test them for existence from the shell first. Here's what I'm doing in my shell lib:

all_eh() { local predic a; predic=$1; shift for a; do $predic "$a" || return 1 done } mkdir_p() { all_eh 'test -d' "$@" || mkdir -p "$@"; } 

This is faster if all the directories exist because test (or [ ) is a shell builtin (in practically all shells) and so doesn't cost you the usual 1-2ms fork/exec overhead.