Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!tellab5!laidbak!obdient!homer!root
From: root@homer.UUCP (Marc Brumlik)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: How do I tell when a directory is empty in a script?
Message-ID: <900@homer.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 91 17:28:56 GMT
References: <1991Mar30.040400.13893@ncsu.edu> <1991Mar30.225406.20493@dg-rtp.dg.com> <1991Apr3.142150.4445@athena.mit.edu> <9424@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: root@homer.ORG (Marc Brumlik)
Organization: Tailored Software, Inc., Wheaton, IL
Lines: 30

In article <9424@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> asg@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bruce Varney) writes:
->But why are you all making this so hard?????
->Its easy. 
->do this:
->---isempty---
->#!/bin/sh
->dir=$1
->num1=`ls -aF $dir | grep -v "/$" | wc -l`
->num2=`expr \`ls -lad $dir | cut -c12-13\` - 2 `
->num=`expr $num1 + $num2`
->if [ $num = "0" ]
->then
->   echo The directory is empty
->else
->   echo The directory is not empty
->fi
->---isempty---

it can be even easier than this...  how about:

	cd $1
	files=`echo *`
	if [ "Z$files" = "Z" ]
		then	echo "empty"
		else	echo "not empty"
	fi

--
..{util20,obdient}!homer!marc	Marc Brumlik, Tailored Software, Inc.
				Wheaton, IL	Voice: 708 668 9947