title: Bash: how to copy directory's files if present
body: <p>In as script I have the statement </p>
  
  <pre><code>eval cp "$chapter"/subsections/* $temp/subsections
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, I am not sure there are actually files in "$chapter"/subsections/. As a consequence I get errors :</p>
  
  <pre><code>cp: cannot stat `Commissioning/subsections/*': No such file or directory
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there an option in cp to avoid complaints (I couldn't find any) ?</p>
  
  <p>Is there a simple way to check existence of any file in a directory ? </p>