How to find the total number of files in a folder

cnm · 12-13-2006, 08:53 AM

How can i find the number of files in a perticular folder?

Aftre copying an etire folder is there a way to conform that all the files are coppied?

fordeck · 12-13-2006, 09:10 AM

This will tell you the number of files in a directory.

ls | wc -l

pixellany · 12-13-2006, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fordeck

This will tell you the number of files in a directory.

ls | wc -l

Actually, I think that will give you the number of files and directories in a directory

nx5000 · 12-13-2006, 10:04 AM

A directory is a file but its not a regular file, so the question is not clear enough
If he does not want directory, then something awfull like this should do:
echo $(($(ls -l | grep -v ^d | wc -l)-1))

Broder · 12-13-2006, 10:04 AM

That's the only way I would know to do it either, there must be a way of counting just files though. It'd be nice to get an output like:
13 files
4 directories
2 symbolic links

You could write a little script to do that cnm and post it up for us! :P

If they have the same extension you can count using:

ls *.txt | wc

You can use the diffcommand to compare two directories if you just want to ensure that it copied successfully.

nx5000 · 12-13-2006, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feelda

13 files
4 directories
2 symbolic links

Code:

ls -l | grep ^- | wc -l
ls -l | grep ^d | wc -l
ls -l | grep ^l | wc -l

Broder · 12-13-2006, 10:46 AM

*******************

chrism01 · 12-13-2006, 06:33 PM

An alternative is to use the find cmd, using -type option:

-type c
File is of type c:

b block (buffered) special

c character (unbuffered) special

d directory

p named pipe (FIFO)

f regular file

l symbolic link

s socket

nx5000 · 12-14-2006, 04:40 AM

Actually that's true, the grep doesn't work for regular files that have certain properties (suid,...) so here's a better one:

Code:

for t in files links directories; do echo `find . -type ${t:0:1} | wc -l` $t; done 2> /dev/null

If you don't want to recurse directories (only count files in the current dir):

Code:

for t in files links directories; do echo `find . -maxdepth 1 -type ${t:0:1} | wc -l` $t; done 2> /dev/null

Result:

655 files
6 links
213 directories

And directory count begins at 1 because . is counted as a directory.

matthewg42 · 12-14-2006, 08:33 AM

A small command line perl program to do it:

Code:

ls -l |perl -e 'while(<>){$h{substr($_,0,1)}+=1;} END {foreach(keys %h){print "$_ $h{$_}\n";}}'

thamba · 12-14-2007, 07:21 AM

Use the 'tree' command. If its not present in the system by default, I recommend installing it.
It outputs a beautiful tree structure showing the files and the directories and finally printing number of files and directories in a folder.

mrampton · 03-05-2009, 11:32 PM

I did this by:

du -a | cut -d/ -f2 | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

which will return the number of files in the directory + 1 (the directory itself).

sumeet inani · 10-28-2009, 09:45 AM

I have taken clue from previous post & come up with simplest way

Finding number of files in a folder
find . -type f | wc -l
this means output of find comand (which is only files no directories)is sent to wc which counts number of lines i.e number of files

Finding number of subfolders in a folder
(1)find . -type d | wc -l
This will give number of subfolders+1 because current folder also gets included.Note that the folders inside subfolders are also included in count.
(2)If you want to see only number of folders in current folder then
find . -maxdepth 1 -type d | wc -l
Here output is numberof subfolders+1
NOTE:folders inside subfolders not considered.

If this information helps you please thank me by pressing thumbs up button.Happy hacking.

chrism01 · 10-28-2009, 09:51 PM

Quote:

grep doesn't work for regular files that have certain properties (suid,

chmod u+s (set suid) affects the user's 'x' permission char, not the file type char ie first char in ls -l

dylan_ec · 12-16-2010, 04:59 PM

You can use the command

find . -type f | wc -l

=)