Re: no test(1) for empty directories

[Aharon Robbins]

In article <address@hidden>,
Paul Jarc <address@hidden> wrote:
>address@hidden (Aharon Robbins) wrote:
>> In article <address@hidden>,
>> Dan Jacobson <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> No neat and clean way to use test(1) to find empty directories.  Sure,
>>> got -d and -s, but no special -s especially made for directories.
>>
>> You don't need it. Check for directory and link count of 2.
>
>That tells you whether there are subdirectories, not whether there are
>any files at all.

Good point.  I suppose

        if rmdir $directory_I_want_to_know_is_empty >/dev/null 2>&1
        then
                : directory was empty, continue
        else
                : it is not empty, react as needed
        fi

is a sure-fire, if slightly drastic, way to do this.  (:-)

Something like this would seem to work too:

        if [ `ls -1a $dir | wc -l` = 2 ]
        then
                directory_is_empty
        else
                it_is_not
        fi

Arnold
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