CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashshellunixscripting
Alan Smith
Alan Smith

Reputation: 1169

Count files and directories using shell script

I'm learning bash scripting and have written a script to count the files and directories in the directory that is supplied as argument. I have it working one way which seems odd to me and am wondering if there is a simpler way of doing it.

I have commented out the code that will work, but left it in as a comparison. I am trying to get the for-loop working, instead using if statements inside it to detect if an item in the given location is a file or a directory.

Edit: I just found out that the commented code counts all files and directories in the subdirectories of the given location as well! Is there any way to prevent this and just count the files and directories of the given location?

#!/bin/bash

LOCATION=$1
FILECOUNT=0
DIRCOUNT=0

if [ "$#" -lt "1" ]
then
    echo "Usage: ./test2.sh <directory>"
    exit 0
fi

#DIRS=$(find $LOCATION -type d)
#FILES=$(find $LOCATION -type f)

#for d in $DIRS
#do
#   DIRCOUNT=$[$DIRCOUNT+1]
#done

#for f in $FILES
#do
#   FILECOUNT=$[$FILECOUNT+1]
#done

for item in $LOCATION
do
if [ -f "$item" ]
    then
         FILECOUNT=$[$FILECOUNT+1]
    elif [ -d "$item" ]
        then
         DIRCOUNT=$[$DIRCOUNT+1]
fi
done

echo "File count: " $FILECOUNT
echo "Directory count: " $DIRCOUNT

For some reason the output of the for-loop, no matter where I point the location to, always returns:

File count: 0 , Directory count: 1

Upvotes: 20

Views: 82750

Answers (5)

Rubens
Rubens

Reputation: 14768

You're not iterating over the list of files inside the given directory; add /* after $LOCATION. Your script should look like:

...
for item in $LOCATION/*
do
...

As pointed by dogbane, just adding /* will count only files that does not begin with .; for doing so, you shall do the following:

...
for item in $LOCATION/* $LOCATION/.*
do
...

Upvotes: 5

dogbane
dogbane

Reputation: 274612

Use find as shown below. This solution will count filenames with spaces, newlines and dotfiles correctly.

FILECOUNT="$(find . -type f -maxdepth 1 -printf x | wc -c)"
DIRCOUNT="$(find . -type d -maxdepth 1 -printf x | wc -c)"

Note that the DIRCOUNT includes the current directory (.). If you do not want this, subtract 1.

((DIRCOUNT--)) # to exclude the current directory

Upvotes: 20

Anders Johansson
Anders Johansson

Reputation: 4006

To just solve the problem you can use:

FILECOUNT=$(find $LOCATION -type f | wc -l)
DIRCOUNT=$(find $LOCATION -type d | wc -l)

find will look for all files (-type f) or directories (-type d) recursively under $LOCATION; wc -l will count the number of lines written to stdout in each case.

However if you want to learn, the bash script may be a better way. Some comments:

  • If you want to look for files/directories in $LOCATION only (not recursively under their subdirectories etc), you can use for item in $LOCATION/*, where the * will expand to the list of files/directories in the $LOCATION directory. The missing * is why your original script returns 0/1 (becasue the $LOCATION directory itself is the only item counted).
  • You may want to check first that $LOCATION is actually a directory with [ -d $LOCATION ].
  • For arithmetic expressions, use $(( ... )), for example FILECOUNT=$(( FILECOUNT + 1 )).
  • If you want to find all files/directories recursively, you could combine find with a loop.

Example:

find $LOCATION | while read item; do
    # use $item here...
done

Upvotes: 15

beny23
beny23

Reputation: 35018

Use 

find $LOCATION -maxdepth 1 -type f | wc -l

For the count of files, and

find $LOCATION -maxdepth 1 -type d | wc -l

For counting directories

Upvotes: 2

sampson-chen
sampson-chen

Reputation: 47267

... am wondering if there is a simpler way of doing it.

If you say so ;)

Alternatively, reduce your script to

find /path/to/directory | wc -l

For current directory, do:

find . | wc -l

Upvotes: 4

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