LinuxQuestions.org - How to check if a directory is empty?

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How to check if a directory is empty?

Hi guys I just went throught this site by luck.. seems very nice and hope I will learn alot from it..

I am trying to write a script for my first class, part of it to check is if a directory is empty or not.. I am doing it in bash/korn

I tried many things like:

#$d is the directory name

if [[ ls $d ]] > /dev/null
then
echo "not empty"
else
echo "empty"
fi

I also tried if [[ -f $d/*.* ]]

which also didnt work

I would appreciate any help

peace,

if [ -z `ls /some/dir` ]

That won't work properly, it produces an error if there is more than one file in the directory. Also, hidden files are missed. A suggestion:

Code:

if [ -z "`ls -A $d`" ]; then

    echo empty

else

    echo not empty

fi

The [[ ]] command seems to be rarely used (at least in Bash). It can do string matching with the normal pathname expansion patterns that resemble primitive regular expressions. The [ ] command is more useful. Proper regular expressions can be handled with grep and sed, for example.

Here's a good Bash guide:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html

Regards
Simon