testing if a directory is empty (OOOPS!)

Bruce R Larson ires at kaspar.ires.com
Fri Apr 19 10:32:55 AEST 1991


>In article < ... > pauld at cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:
>| So it needs to be:
>| 
>| 	[ "`cd $1 ; echo .??* *`" = ".??* *" ]

In article < ... > meissner at osf.org (Michael Meissner) writes:
> ... the following should work:
>
>	[ "`cd $1; echo .[^.] .??* *`" = ".[^.] .??* *" ]

Here's how I've checked for empty dirs

#!/bin/sh
if [ "`ls -la $1 | wc -l`" -eq 3 ]; then echo empty; fi


NOTE: every "ls -l" I've used lists the "total" number of
entries on its first line of output, hence the "3".

Bruce
-- 
Bruce R. Larson
Integral Resources, Milton MA
Internet:  blarson at ires.com
Uucp:  ..!{world|uunet}!ires.com!blarson



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