Combining file tests in Zsh - zsh

Question

What is the most elegant way in zsh to test, whether a file is either a readable regular file?
I understand that I can do something like
if [[ -r "$name" && -f "$name" ]]
...
But it requires repeating "$name" twice. I know that we can't combine conditions (-rf $name), but maybe some other feature in zsh could be used?
By the way, I considered also something like
if ls ${name}(R.) >/dev/null 2>&1
...
But in this case, the shell would complain "no matches found", when $name does not fulfil the criterium. Setting NULL_GLOB wouldn't help here either, because it would just replace the pattern with an empty string, and the expression would always be true.

Answer 1

In very new versions of zsh (works for 5.0.7, but not 5.0.5) you could do this
setopt EXTENDED_GLOB
if [[ -n $name(#qNR.) ]]
...
$name(#qNR.) matches files with name $name that are readable (R) and regular (.). N enables NULL_GLOB for this match. That is, if no files match the pattern it does not produce an error but is removed from the argument list. -n checks if the match is in fact non-empty. EXTENDED_GLOB is needed to enable the (#q...) type of extended globbing which in turn is needed because parenthesis usually have a different meaning inside conditional expressions ([[ ... ]]).
Still, while it is indeed possible to write something up that uses $name only once, I would advice against it. It is rather more convoluted than the original solution and thus harder to understand (i.e. needs thinking) for the next guy that reads it (your future self counts as "next guy" after at most half a year). And at least this solution will work only on zsh and there only on new versions, while the original would run unaltered on bash.

Answer 2

How about make small(?) shell functions as you mentioned?
tests-raw () {
setopt localoptions no_ksharrays
local then="$1"; shift
local f="${#[-1]}" t=
local -i ret=0
set -- "${#[1,-2]}"
for t in ${#[#]}; do
if test "$t" "$f"; then
ret=$?
"$then"
else
return $?
fi
done
return ret
}
and () tests-raw continue "${#[#]}";
or () tests-raw break "${#[#]}";
# examples
name=/dev/null
if and -r -c "$name"; then
echo 'Ok, it is a readable+character special file.'
fi
#>> Ok, it is...
and -r -f ~/.zshrc ; echo $? #>> 0
or -r -d ~/.zshrc ; echo $? #>> 0
and -r -d ~/.zshrc ; echo $? #>> 1
# It could be `and -rd ~/.zshrc` possible.
I feel this is somewhat overkill though.