Hi, I have some some directory with folders in it. i just need to count how many folders resides in that directory.
When I use

ls |wc -l I got 74

When I use ls -l|wc -l I got 75

or directly from shell

[frenky@web 13]$ ls |wc -l
74
[frenky@bweb 13]$ ls -l|wc -l
75
[frenky@bweb 13]$

I am asking all of you out there what is difference between above two commands.

Thanks in advance.

Regards

If you look carefully, you'll see an extra line like
total 108
for ls -l

Use
ls -1 | wc -l
This prints exactly one file name per line, but omits the header "total N".
Note: the parameter to ls is a "one", not an "ell".

I created 26 files in a new directory with names a,b,c,..z and tried your problem.

For ls | wc -l, the answeer was 1.

For ls -l| wc -l, the answer was 27.

ls writes more than 1 file name to output, if the output window width is sufficient. In my case, it could write all 26 file names in a single line.

In case of ls -l, it found 26 lines for 26 files and 1 summary line

ppanyam

Please note that the output of ls depends on the alias (if any). On my system, and $LS_OPTIONS set to --color=auto -F -b -T 0, ls only gives files and directories without additional info and with as many on a line as fits.

Your approach on my system will definitely give the incorrect results with the ls command.

Edit: ppanyam was quicker

And you mean diffence is that ls -l|wc -l prints all lines plus total line??

ls -l prints one line per file/dir, and the summary line. wc -l counts the number of lines in input.

find . -type d | wc

you mean -type f ?


Cheers,
Tink

That clearly means that you must have done something
to your ls if it outputs files in columns when piping to wc.


Cheers,
Tink

I think this whole thread is getting a tad confused from the word go...

In the windows world they decided, for some weird reason, to introduce the term "Folder" to mean the same thing as "Directory".

In the unix world, there are no folders, only files and directories.

Let me just check something quickly...

Fire up konqueror (I usually use command line, not gui stuff)

Aww cwap!! The KDE types have copied Windows and called directories folders. Grumble moan (irritating puppies) whinge (arthritis) growl (gout) hrrumph!

Anyhoo, a Folder === Directory. Directory is older name.

So, no I did mean...
find . -type d | wc
..to count ddirectories (folders)

And
find . -type f | wc
..to count ffiles.

Sigh!

Sorry, I checked it on UNIX(SGI machine), for which "ls" means

It may be different on different systems. Even in Linux, if you have 100 files in your directory, will "ls" show them in 100 rows?

ppanyam

I think the problem that I have is that one guy in the thread is counting
directories, and the other one is creating files.


Thanks for that explanation of find, though, but I don't refer to
directories as folders, and know how to use find, I do Unix/Linux
for a living.
;}


Cheers,
Tink

P.S.: Is the weather in CHCH as horrid as it is in WLGT at the moment?

I guessed you knew, but the OP was happily mixing the terms Directory and Folders so I wondered.

Weather, blooming freezing. Ice on the roads in car park on cars brrrr.

Mountains are really snowy, probably good skiing coming up.