Bash scripting: test for empty directory

Question

I want to test if a directory. If so, i will skip some processing.

I tried the following:

if [ ./* == "./*" ]; then
        echo "No new file"
            exit 1
            fi

but it gives the following error:

line 1: [: too many arguments

Is there a solution/alternative?

Answer 1

if [ "$(ls -A /path/to/dir)" ]; then
   echo "Not Empty"
else
   echo "Empty"
fi

Also, it would be cool to check if the directory exists before.

Answer 2

if [ $(find $DIR_TO_CHECK -maxdepth 0 -type d -empty 2>/dev/null) ]; then
    echo "Empty directory"
else
    echo "Not empty or NOT a directory"
fi

Answer 3

Use the following:

count="$( find /path -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 | wc -l )"
if [ "$count" = "0" ] ; then
   echo "No new file"
   exit 1
fi

This way, you're independent of the output format of ls. -mindepth skips the directory itself, -maxdepth prevents recursively defending into subdirectories to speed things up.

Answer 4

This will do the job in the current working directory (.):

[ `ls -1A . | wc -l` -eq 0 ] && echo "Current dir is empty." || echo "Current dir has files (or hidden files) in it."

or the same command split on three lines just to be more readable:

[ `ls -1A . | wc -l` -eq 0 ] && \
echo "Current dir is empty." || \
echo "Current dir has files (or hidden files) in it."

Just replace ls -1A . | wc -l with ls -1A <target-directory> | wc -l if you need to run it on a different target folder.

Edit: I replaced -1a with -1A (see @Daniel comment)

Answer 5

#!/bin/bash
if [ -d /path/to/dir ]; then
    # the directory exists
    [ "$(ls -A /path/to/dir)" ] && echo "Not Empty" || echo "Empty"
else
    # You could check here if /path/to/dir is a file with [ -f /path/to/dir]
fi

Answer 6

This is all great stuff - just made it into a script so I can check for empty directories below the current one. The below should be put into a file called 'findempty', placed in the path somewhere so bash can find it and then chmod 755 to run. Can easily be amended to your specific needs I guess.

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$#" == "0" ]; then 
find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec findempty "{}"  \;
exit
fi

COUNT=`ls -1A "$*" | wc -l`
if [ "$COUNT" == "0" ]; then 
echo "$* : $COUNT"
fi