CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashfind
boxdot
boxdot

Reputation: 213

List all directories not containing a subdirectoriy

I have a solution for my question

find . -type d -exec sh -c 'test $(find "$0" -maxdepth 1 -type d | wc -l) -eq 1' {} \; -print

I wonder, whether there is a better (faster) method to do this. I don't really like to start in a 'find' another find process.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 128

Answers (2)

devnull
devnull

Reputation: 123448

man find would list an option:

   -links n
          File has n links.

You're looking for directories that contain only two links (namely . and it's name). The following would return you directories without subdirectories:

find . -type d -links 2

Each directory on a normal Unix filesystem has at least 2 hard links: its name and its . (parent directory) entry. Additionally, its subdirectories (if any) each have a .. entry linked to that directory.

Upvotes: 4

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 784928

With little more coding following commandshould also work:

find . -type d|awk 'NR>1{a[c++]=$0; t=t $0 SUBSEP} END{for (i in a) {if (index(t, a[i] "/") > 0) delete a[i]} for (i in a) print a[i]}'

Making it more readable:

find . -type d | awk 'NR > 1 {
   a[c++]=$0;
   t=t $0 SUBSEP
}
END {
   for (i in a) {
      if (index(t, a[i] "/") > 0)
         delete a[i]}
   for (i in a)
      print a[i]
}'

While it might look like more coding in this solution but in a big directory this awk based command should run much faster than the embedded find | wc solution, as in the question.

Performance Testing:

I ran it on a directory containing 15k+ nested sub directories and found this awk command considerably faster (250-300% faster) that the OP's find | wc command.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions