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From: sog@bierstadt.scd.ucar.edu (Steve Gombosi)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: How do I tell when a directory is empty in a script?
Message-ID: <10850@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: 31 Mar 91 02:17:58 GMT
References: <1991Mar30.040400.13893@ncsu.edu> <1991Mar30.225406.20493@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Sender: news@ncar.ucar.edu
Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Lines: 15


Wouldn't it be easier to pipe the output of "ls -la" through "wc -l" and
test for the output being equal to two? Since an empty directory contains
only "." and "..", and "ls -la" (at least on my system) provides a "Totals"
line, the output looks like this:

	%ls -la empty_directory
	total 2
	drwxr-xr-x  2 sog           512 Mar 30 19:07 .
	drwxr-xr-x 11 sog          1024 Mar 30 19:10 ..
	%ls -la empty_directory|wc -l
	3

So, if `ls -la directory_name|wc -l` != 3, the directory has something
in it. Of course, if it's less than three, something is REALLY screwed up...